Keith’s note: according to this LAist article: “The Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey held a groundbreaking ceremony Monday for a roughly 40,000-square-foot expansion that will include indoor and outdoor science learning areas and space for special exhibits. The centerpiece of the buildout will include an interactive display of the Inspiration space shuttle mockup, where visitors can go inside the cargo bay.” When I worked at Rockwell Downey in the early 1980s (location of the Columbia Memorial Space Center) I used to climb inside this plywood orbiter mockup (Missing its left wing) in the DEI room at noon to eat lunch. Shh! I was not the only one who did this (you Rockwell alumni know you did too). I also stood inside the aft end of Discovery and Atlantis during assembly in Building 1, past Challenger in Palmdale, and drove around Downey in an old gas scooter with hardware spares of what would eventually become Endeavor one day. There was Apollo junk in the desk I used. Lots of fun by this 20-something space fan. 30 years later when the Columbia Center opened I spoke at the opening ceremony as a member of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education board of directors. The Columbia Center building is located where I used to park my car. Discovery is 15 minutes from my house now (unless Ted Cruz takes it). My friends and things I helped designed flew on all of them. It’s fun when life coming full circle.

Interplanetary Memorial to Victims of Sept. 11, 2001: “The piece of metal with the American flag on it in this image of a NASA rover on Mars is made of aluminum recovered from the site of the World Trade Center towers in the weeks after their destruction. The piece serves as a cable guard for the rock abrasion tool on NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit as well as a memorial to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. An identical piece is on the twin rover, Opportunity. The rock abrasion tools were built by Honeybee Robotics in lower Manhattan, less than a mile from the site. This image comes from the panoramic camera on Spirit and was taken on Feb. 2, 2004, the 30th Martian day, or sol, of Spirit’s work on Mars.”

Keith’s note: FYI Sean Duffy: NASA pushes out narratives (issued from the White House) about winning the “second space race” to the Moon. OK, that seems like a straight forward story to tell. Having historians and storytellers explain this adventure would be smart. But you really can’t do that when your boss dumps on one of the greatest lunar popular storytellers i.e. Tom Hanks. Read the room. Just sayin’

Keith’s note: As best I can collate the facts, on 18 March 1945, 80 years ago today, a V-2 missile was launched from Statenkwartier in The Hague in occupied Netherlands at 9:25 am by Germany’s Battery 485. My father was almost killed when it struck London a few minutes later. My 50 year career was enabled by that V-2. A direct descendant, a Saturn V, designed by the same V-2 team, placed Americans on the Moon. The other day, yet another direct descendant, the SpaceX Starship, leapt above the sky.

Book Review: The Apollo 11 Flight Plan: A Real Script Of Exploration “The Apollo 11 Flight Plan” from relaunch.space is one of the more unusual books that I have “read” or reviewed. Let me get this out of they up front: this book represents a true labor of love and dedication to the art of making history available as if it happened yesterday. This book contains a faithful recreation of […]

Multiple Historic Resonances With The Moon Aboard ISS Keith’s update: Four small Apollo 11 Moon rocks that went to the summit of Mt. Everest – with an Astronaut – plus a piece of the summit of Everest – are now located in the ISS cupola 2 meters from where this picture was taken. “… Like a mini version, my Cosmic Kiss mission patch floats here next to the Nebra Sky […]

That Time Wernher von Braun’s Rocket Tried To Kill My Father “Humanity now lives in space permanently. Our spacecraft have left the solar system. Our space telescopes look back to the beginning of time. We are spacefarers. Space technology has its roots in weapons of war. America’s early accomplishments in space were achieved with direct use of Nazi technology and personnel. Russia followed a similar path. Today North Korea, Iran, […]

11 September 2001: Bad news from Earth, New Moon Rising – SpaceRef Larger image “The news from Earth that morning wasn’t good. Frank Culbertson would soon find that some of the day’s pre-planned routine would be altered. As soon as he was told of the attacks, Culbertson checked to see when they would be passing over the east coast of the U.S. Discovering that this was only some minutes away, […]

“Nancy Liggett Evans 11/22/1937 – 1/17/2020 was born to M. Margaret and Dr. Robert Samuel Liggett in Denver Colorado. She was married to E. Wayne Bamford bearing a daughter Megan Ann. She was later married to William J. Evans of Denver. Moving to California in the 70’s, she was employed in planetary exploration at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA headquarters and the California Institute of Technology. Known as the “mother” of […]

Rocket scientists mourn end of Redstone Arsenal’s RSIC library, AL.com “The Army is closing what its supporters say is one of the world’s great rocket science libraries in Alabama next week, and veterans of America’s space program are angry. … The decision to close was made early this year and posted on the aerospace blog Spaceref. But it is not believed widely known in Huntsville, where more than a few […]