Keith’s note: Recently everyone in the space bubble was jumping up and down about the 100th anniversary of Robert Goddard’s liquid rocket launch. They even held the infamous “Space Prom”. That was last week. For years NASA Goddard employees maintained a display in Building 28 dedicated to Robert Goddard. GSFC management has recently decided to remove this display to make room for a snack bar seemingly without regard for its historical significance. Oh well.

Keith’s note: As best I can collate the facts, on 18 March 1945, 81 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. Now, in 2026, we are about to go back to the Moon on the stepchild of a Saturn V while V-2 inspired variants are still being fired by North Korea and Iran. The more things change … Full posting from 2025

Keith’s 29 Jan note: Time magazine revealed its cover dedicated to the Artemis II mission Thursday morning via a press release and tweeted it out at 8:03 am EST. That tweet has gotten over 1 million impressions. Lots of people noticed and retweeted it. But no mention has been made at @NASA. OSTP retweeted it at noon. No mention by OSTP director @mkratsios47 or @NASAAdmin or @NASAArtemis. But PAO staffers Bethany Stevens and George Alderman noticed and retweeted it – so it is not as if NASA PAO was unaware of this. And OSTP tweeted it as well and got ~2,000 impressions (i.e. no one pays much attention to OSTP). But why not use @NASA and its 88.5 million followers? Given that the President really really likes the whole idea of being on the cover of Time magazine, you’d think that this would be a big deal. NASA Is certainly not shy about pumping out its own pre-game PR for the mission. So why ignore this one – especially since it gives free ‘earned visibility’? Those of us old enough to remember Apollo 8 in 1968 will recall the impact it had on the world – the first trip to the Moon. Now we are going back over half a century – the first human Moon mission for 70% of humanity – and an echo of that history has been made. But NASA choses to ignore it. Yet another example of NASA’s baffling way of not making the most of its global branding reach. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

• Friday 30 Jan Update: at 7:28 am EST this morning Jared Isaacman tweeted about this historic resonance. “58 years after Apollo 8’s historic trip around the Moon, NASA is heading back. This time, our crew is going farther into space than any human in history. Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch, and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen will embark on a ten-day mission around the Moon, marking America’s grand return to the lunar environment. Artemis II marks the beginning of the boldest series of missions the world has ever seen. Through the Artemis campaign, we will maintain American superiority in space, land American astronauts on the Moon, and establish a lunar base all before the end of 2028. Godspeed Artemis II 🇺🇸”
• And so has ESA Director general Josef Aschbacher : “Artemis is not the story of one nation alone – Europe plays a central and indispensable role. This is the story of a shared vision and a shared commitment. The European Service Module, developed by @ESA and built by European industry with contributions from 10 ESA Member States, is the powerhouse of NASA’s Orion spacecraft. It provides propulsion, electrical power, water, oxygen, thermal control and the capability to manoeuvre through space – including the critical burns needed to set the astronauts on their journey to the Moon. Quite simply, Orion could not fly without Europe. Europe is proud to stand shoulder to shoulder – and on the shoulders of giants – with its international partners, led by the United States🇺🇸. Together, we are extending humankind’s presence beyond Earth and demonstrating that cooperation remains our most powerful engine for the future.”
• And ESA too: “We’re proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with our international partners in Artemis. Our European Service Module is at the heart of NASA’s Orion spacecraft. Together, we’re extending humankind’s presence in space and demonstrating that multilateral and inclusive cooperation is vital for our future.”

Keith’s note: Last week I posted a quick Photoshop (No A.I.) montage on social media using NASA pics of Artemis II / Apollo 8 crews. Space nerds hammered me online because Apollo 8 orbited the Moon and Artemis II won’t. Duh. They miss the point.

• Apollo 8 was humanity’s first visit to the Moon in 1968 which was a very bad year.
• Artemis II will be humanity’s first return to lunar space in 2026 in half a century which could also (probably) be a very bad year
• 70% of the world alive today have never seen humans visit another world. For them Artemis program will provide their first moon landing. For them, we will be doing the same thing again for the first time.
• Waiting to see how NASA PAO dials up the actual launch coverage for #Artemis and whether its more pro-Administration Rah Rah – or a real chance to look at past, present and future history – in a cogent, dare I say it – hopeful – perspective. AdAstra y’all.

Keith’s 2 Jan 2025 update: I posted this a year ago. We are coming up on the agency’s Remembrance Day observations. We’re about to see humans return to the Moon. NASA has not bothered to update or repost this link. Why airbrush history when you are trying to repeat it? Keith’s original 26 Jan 2025 note: Looks like this DEIA-oriented page at NASA.gov needs to be erased ASAP: “45 Years Ago: NASA Selects 35 New Astronauts On Jan. 16, 1978, NASA announced the selection of 35 new astronauts, the first time in more than eight years that the agency had admitted new astronauts. The selection of the first class of space shuttle astronauts held historic significance not only because of its then-record size but also because, for the first time, the group included women and minorities. Previous astronaut selections in the 1960s consisted of test pilots or scientists, in those days the domain principally of white men.“ Update: I posted this on Sunday morning, 26 January. I checked today – 27 January – and it is gone.  This is what it looked like 2 days before being removed.

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 […]