NASA Archives

Space and Technology

A NASA space telescope is falling out of the sky, and to save it the agency skipped its own contractors and handed the job to a four-year-old startup that had never flown a spacecraft — nine months and $30 million after its own $2 billion rescue program collapsed.

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has spent 21 years as astronomy's first responder, swinging toward exploding stars faster than any other telescope. Now it...

Harry J. KazianisJuly 10, 2026

NASA Apollo 11 Exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Saturn V Hanger. Image Credit 19FortyFive Harry J. Kazianis.

Aerospace & Defense

Nearly 18,000 People Applied to Be NASA Astronauts. About 12 Made It.

NASA receives 12,000 to 18,000 applications in a typical astronaut cycle and selects about ten to twelve people, an acceptance rate well below one...

Harrison KassJuly 9, 2026

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, launching in 2026, is expected to find around 100,000 planets beyond our solar system in a single mission — after nearly 30 years of searching, astronomers have confirmed roughly 6,000.

Space and Technology

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, launching in 2026, is expected to find around 100,000 planets beyond our solar system in a single mission — after nearly 30 years of searching, astronomers have confirmed roughly 6,000.

NASA already flies two famous space telescopes, Hubble and James Webb. A third is almost ready: the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, launching in...

Harrison KassJuly 8, 2026

This composite image, from NASA's Galileo and Mars Global Survey orbiters, of Earth and Mars was created to allow viewers to gain a better understanding of the relative sizes of the two planets.

Space and Technology

Mars once had rivers, lakes, and possibly oceans, and it lost all of them for one reason — its molten core cooled, its magnetic field died, and the solar wind stripped the planet’s air into space.

Mars wasn't always frozen and barren. Billions of years ago it had flowing rivers, standing lakes, and possibly oceans. It lost all of it...

Harrison KassJuly 7, 2026

Space and Technology

In January 2005 a European probe named Huygens fell for two and a half hours through the orange haze of Titan and landed on a plain of ice — the most distant touchdown in history, and no spacecraft has ever gone back.

Most probes orbit worlds or fly past them. In January 2005, Europe's Huygens did something far rarer: it landed. Carried across the solar system...

Harrison KassJuly 7, 2026

Space and Technology

In 1965, Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov stepped outside Voskhod 2 for the first spacewalk in history, and his suit ballooned so badly in vacuum that he had to bleed oxygen through a valve to fit back inside before orbital darkness

On 18 March 1965, the Soviet Union sent Alexei Leonov outside Voskhod 2 for the first spacewalk in history. The mission became a Space...

Harry J. KazianisJuly 6, 2026

Space and Technology

At 70,000 Feet, Olympus Mons on Mars Stands Two and a Half Times Taller Than Mount Everest. It Is the Largest Volcano in the Solar System, and It May Not Be Extinct

A person standing on the largest volcano in the solar system would never know it. Olympus Mons rises 70,000 feet over Mars on slopes...

Harry J. KazianisJuly 5, 2026

Space and Technology

NASA Has Not Launched Anything Faster Than Voyager in 48 Years. Here Is the Real Menu of Machines That Could Finally Beat It

Voyager 1 is about to become the first object one light-day from Earth, still whispering home on a plutonium supply the size of a...

Harry J. KazianisJuly 5, 2026

This artistic impression depicts our Solar System neighbour Venus, where scientists have confirmed the detection of phosphine molecules. The molecules were detected in the Venusian high clouds in data from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, in which ESO is a partner. Astronomers have speculated for decades that life could exist in Venus’s high clouds. The detection of phosphine could point to such extra-terrestrial “aerial” life.

Space and Technology

Terraforming Venus means removing 90 Earth atmospheres of carbon dioxide, cooling a planet that melts lead, and importing an ocean — the newest NASA idea skips all of it

Venus crushes, roasts, and corrodes anything that touches it, and it has almost no water. But fifty kilometers up, the pressure matches Earth's —...

Harry J. KazianisJuly 5, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

The ‘Best Fighter Never Produced’: Vought’s Crusader III Outflew the F-4 Phantom, Then Lost Everything in 48 Hours

In December 1958, the U.S. Navy chose the F-4 Phantom over a Vought fighter that was faster, lighter, and cheaper — the better airplane,...

Harry J. KazianisJuly 4, 2026

19FortyFive

All posts tagged "NASA"

Space and Technology

A NASA space telescope is falling out of the sky, and to save it the agency skipped its own contractors and handed the job to a four-year-old startup that had never flown a spacecraft — nine months and $30 million after its own $2 billion rescue program collapsed.

Aerospace & Defense

Nearly 18,000 People Applied to Be NASA Astronauts. About 12 Made It.

Space and Technology

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, launching in 2026, is expected to find around 100,000 planets beyond our solar system in a single mission — after nearly 30 years of searching, astronomers have confirmed roughly 6,000.

Space and Technology

Mars once had rivers, lakes, and possibly oceans, and it lost all of them for one reason — its molten core cooled, its magnetic field died, and the solar wind stripped the planet’s air into space.

Space and Technology

In January 2005 a European probe named Huygens fell for two and a half hours through the orange haze of Titan and landed on a plain of ice — the most distant touchdown in history, and no spacecraft has ever gone back.

Space and Technology

In 1965, Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov stepped outside Voskhod 2 for the first spacewalk in history, and his suit ballooned so badly in vacuum that he had to bleed oxygen through a valve to fit back inside before orbital darkness

Space and Technology

At 70,000 Feet, Olympus Mons on Mars Stands Two and a Half Times Taller Than Mount Everest. It Is the Largest Volcano in the Solar System, and It May Not Be Extinct

Space and Technology

NASA Has Not Launched Anything Faster Than Voyager in 48 Years. Here Is the Real Menu of Machines That Could Finally Beat It

Space and Technology

Terraforming Venus means removing 90 Earth atmospheres of carbon dioxide, cooling a planet that melts lead, and importing an ocean — the newest NASA idea skips all of it

Aerospace & Defense

The ‘Best Fighter Never Produced’: Vought’s Crusader III Outflew the F-4 Phantom, Then Lost Everything in 48 Hours

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