Keith’s note: A preprint was posted on Wednesday 3 Dec 2025 titled “Voyager 1 Data Reveals Signatures of the Local Gas and Cosmic-Ray Source Distributions“ which refers to “recent Voyager 1 data taken in the local ISM” and that “this work is partially funded via NASA grants 80NSSC22K0477, 80NSSC22K0718, and 80NSSC23K0169.” A NASA (American) mission is sending back data that from interstellar space. No other nation has a growing fleet of interstellar missions. Talk about taking the lead in space exploration. Yes, this is nerdy stuff – but it is still baffling to me that the agency simply cannot back up the whole “Make America Great In Space (again)” mantra with actual, no kidding, examples of pre-eminence in space. Data summary below.

Keith’s note: I was only at NASA a short time in 1987 and was put on the Voyager Neptune “interstellar mission” status report distribution list (L). How cool. Nearly 40 years later I posted (R) about the one-light-day mark that will be reached a year from now. We’re actually heading to the stars – truly Ad Astra. No other nation has actually gone interstellar – and no one else will do so any time soon. It may be just a space nerd bench mark – but one would think that if NASA was going to hop on the ‘Make America Great In Space (Again)’ / ‘Keep America Great In Space’ bandwagon, they’d be looking for things NASA has accomplished like this – those with profound implications. We may be in a ‘race’ (back) to the Moon but no one is going to beat the U.S. into the cosmos any time soon. Oh yea there are two block buster movies coming out soon that deal with interstellar travel. Easy things to hang some outreach on – maybe even a teachable moment. Just sayin’.

Keith’s note: We are the first nation to sail between the stars. America is already “Great in Space”. Lets make it – make NASA – even greater – not weaker.

Keith’s note: according to NASA: “On July 1, the NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) survey telescope in Rio Hurtado, Chile, first reported observations of a comet that originated from interstellar space. Arriving from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, the interstellar comet has been officially named 3I/ATLAS. It is currently located about 420 million miles (670 million kilometers) away.” More – plus video

Keith’s note: Those of you in the space community know that NASA Science is facing an immense budget cut. Dozens of missions have been cancelled and many missions that are still returning valuable data are being shut off – in many cases to save a few million dollars – a tiny fraction of what it took to mount the missions in the first place. This data will be lost. In the case of New Horizons which is currently traversing the outer solar system, NASA is going to knowingly forfeit a third interstellar mission (after the twin Voyagers). This latest interstellar mission would be done with a healthy spacecraft outfitted with 21st century instrumentation. The Voyagers are minimally functional and will soon fade all together. We could continue to expand America’s pre-eminent exploration of interstellar space until the middle of this century. And that lead will last unchallenged for a generation or more to come. As I noted last month “This is not the way for America to lead the way out into the cosmos. Hopefully Congress will wake up and notice. Let’s ‘Keep America Great In Space’ — not abandon our lead.” More: Stellar Cartography: A Demonstration Of Interstellar Navigation Using New Horizons.

Keith’s note: NASA just turned 66. Jimmy Carter just turned 100. Too bad NASA does not remember its own past – a past currently being sent to the stars.

Keith’s note: Nine years ago – on 7 November 2014 – I had a chance to visit a large scale model of the “Ranger” Spacecraft used in the filming of “Interstellar” (my original 2014 posting “Visiting Interstellar’s Spacecraft” with lots of pictures). A large tent was erected in a parking lot at the Udvar Hazy Facility near Dulles, Airport in Virginia 11 miles from my house. So I visited it more than once. Often times I was the only person in the tent other the lone security guard. Then I went inside to view the film on a vast IMAX screen in original film projection format. I was spoiled. I really loved this film for the way if portrayed a personal approach to the exploration of the universe – the small aspects and the vast aspects. The twin Voyager spacecraft travel ~ 3.5 AUs (325.5 million miles) a year – so they’ve both traversed around 3 billion miles outward across interstellar space since the movie came out. Meanwhile back on Earth we are still tearing our planet’s life support system apart – indeed the fires and natural disasters depicted in the film ring far more true today than they did in 2014. And of course we are doing much the same thing to our society – thus adding to the impetus to move outward. Oh yes: they almost used the NASA worm logo in the movie – and almost spelled my last name right on the aft end of Ranger 😉 Some of my favorite lines (there are so many to chose from):

• “We must reach far beyond our own lifespans. we must think not as individuals but as species. We must confront the reality of interstellar travel.”
• “Mankind Was Born On Earth. It Was Never Meant To Die Here.”
• “We Used To Look Up At The Sky And Wonder At Our Place In The Stars. Now, We Just Look Down And Worry About Our Place In The Dirt.”
• “Do not go gentle into that good night; Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” (Dylan Thomas)
• ” We’ve always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible. And we count these moments. These moments when we dare to aim higher, to break barriers, to reach for the stars, to make the unknown known. We count these moments as our proudest achievements. But we lost all that. Or perhaps we’ve just forgotten that we are still pioneers. And we’ve barely begun. And that our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, that our destiny lies above us.”

Keith’s note: I got this response from NASA GSFC PAO with regard to my initial posting last night. This is what happens when a biologist (me) thinks they are a know-it-all. I stand thoroughly corrected. My initial post follows below this correction. Hi, Keith. You write: “Anyone who saw the film Interstellar would recognize the similarity between the NASA and film images of a black hole. Oddly there is no […]

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Breakthrough Initiatives Summit on Life in the Universe and Space Exploration “Breakthrough Initiatives today announced its second annual Breakthrough Discuss scientific conference, which will bring together leading astronomers, engineers, astrobiologists and astrophysicists to advance discussion surrounding recent discoveries of potentially habitable planets in nearby star systems. The two days of discussions will focus on newly discovered Earth-like ‘exoplanets’ in the Alpha Centauri and TRAPPIST-1 planetary systems, and new evidence that […]