In the Back Seat of Your Rover
Thoughts on JWST, The Chainsmokers are going to space, Russia is leaving the ISS, and China's impending rocket crash
Welcome to another week of space news and the bite-sized space races that read more tantalizing than a well-crafted subtweet. And yes, you might have guessed that I’m talking about the high-stakes space balloon race - well maybe high stakes is a bit of an exaggeration - but World View and Space Perspective seem neck and neck to win out as the preferred “overview effect” provider to the space tourism industry.
The latest headline in this friendly (who’s to say?) rivalry is that World View will be launching The Chainsmokers, electronic pop duo, into space to record an exclusive performance. Causing many music-lovers to ask - why we didn’t do this sooner? Now, the most infectiously-irritating song in recent years will reach the edge of space. We’ll keep you posted as this important story develops. Because if you’re like me you might be wondering what’s next…the moon? Really adds a new meaning to “baby pull me closer, in the back seat of your rover.” The signs were there people, we just chose to not see them.
And now, the space beat you came for…
What does it mean that France signed the Artemis Accords?
Written by Rahul Rao
On June 7, France became the twentieth country to sign the Artemis Accords: the documents that lay out America’s vision of future cooperation in space. First issued in October 2020, the Accords form a prerequisite for countries to play with NASA’s ambitious plans for the Artemis program: lunar landings, the Lunar Gateway space station, and more.
The signing ceremony — held in the French ambassador’s residence in Washington — put an end to years of speculation over whether France would join up.
It’s more than just a formality. France is the biggest player in, and the biggest funder of, the European Space Agency’s unique multinational structure. Although France had held out due to concerns over the Accords’ content, they’ve finally acquiesced.
That leaves one last major ESA member who hasn't signed the Accords: Germany.
Let’s Talk About the JWST in the Room
Written by Evan Yee
This is our second newsletter since the release of the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope and already there is an article ranking the pictures on how good they look to eat. But jokes aside - space journalist Jonathan O’Callaghan wrote an article for Quanta Magazine titled “Two Weeks in, the Webb Space Telescope is Reshaping Astronomy” and we’d be hard-pressed to disagree. There’s been a large amount of headlines and posts about how data from JWST is causing scientists to “scramble,” racing to examine the photos that are ushering us into a new phase of our relationship with the universe that we inhabit. From potentially finding the latest candidates for the furthest away galaxies ever seen to expanding the search for life outside our solar system, the unfathomable possibilities that lie out in the depths of space that we may now be able to see with JWST are incredibly exciting.
On the other hand, even the most mesmerizing NIRCam shot can't shield JWST from controversy — or literal micrometeroids for that matter. Writing for Space.com via The Conversation, Dr. Alice Gorman penned an Op-Ed about JWST’s namesake James Webb and his involvement with the Lavender Scare. We’ve previously discussed controversies within popular space narratives with Dr. Gorman before on the Celestial Citizen podcast, as well as covered JWST and other naming conventions within the space industry in our own feature back in May. As a new generation of space explorers will grow up with e-textbooks featuring dazzling images from JWST, it’s certainly hard to ignore that Webb’s troubled legacy will carry on via this incredibly exciting time of discovery.
Additionally, a few weeks ago we shared the news that the JWST had been hit by a larger than expected micrometeoroid. After assessing the damage, scientists published a report, in which they concluded that further effects of micrometeoroids to JWST are unknown. This is far from optimistic news for a telescope that has cost almost 10 billion dollars and over 20 years in development. To this writer, it feels like the distant cousin of the Hubble Space Telescope launch, or NASA’s” billion dollar blunder” in which it was discovered after launch that one of the telescope’s lenses was mispositioned. This was eventually fixed by sending astronauts to replace the part, the story summed up in a great podcast episode of Sidedoor from the Smithsonian. But in JWST’s case, the telescope was designed to not be serviceable as it will orbit a million miles away from Earth. Much further away than Hubble’s orbital home of 350 miles above the Earth’s surface. All in all, the damage to JWST was minor, so let’s hope that no more of these anomalies happen as it continues its journey into space.
What we can do is look to the future - development on the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope is already underway, and one can only imagine that there is a team putting in extra work developing micrometeoroid shields. And while keeping in view the shadow of Webb and dangers of space, the future is certainly bright (with infrared light that is!)
Top Headlines
Clocking Out — Just as developments in space help us on Earth, so do actions on Earth affect our future in space. Russia announced this week that it will quit the ISS after 2024. This news comes off the heels of an agreement between the US and Russia to have their astronauts swap seats on flights to the ISS. Roscosmos has said that it will fulfill its agreed upon obligations before leaving. Yuri Borislov, the current Director General of Roscosmos, also said that he hopes the agency will have begun development of their own orbiting space station by the time they leave the ISS. This is huge news, but not totally unexpected, as foreshadowed by this op-ed from The Hill on Dimitry Rogozin’s dismissal from Roscosmos. Time will tell if Roscosmos will make good on their position as the ISS ages.
Too Much Too Soon? — Speaking of such, on July 21st, members of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel “said they were concerned that commercial stations whose development is being supported by NASA were unlikely to be ready in time before the ISS is retired at the end of the decade, and that those efforts suffered from insufficient budgets,” per Spacenews.com. Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef station is one of the stations of concern in this case. Amy Donahue, a member of the panel, stated that “NASA really needs to acknowledge and plan for the underlying reality that maintaining a continuous human presence on orbit now and into the future is going to require significant government investment.”
New Crew, Who This? — Blue Origin has announced its crew for NS-22! Almost a year after Blue Origin’s debut flight announcement, the company will be flying six more passengers into space with very diverse backgrounds. Among them are Sara Sabry and Coby Cotton. Sabry is the founder of the Deep Space Initiative and will be following in the steps of Katya Echazarreta, flying as part of Space for Humanity’s Citizen Astronaut program. She will also be the first Egyptian person to go to space. Cotton is one of the co-founders of YouTube channel “Dude Perfect” and his seat is sponsored by cryptocurrency-org, MoonDao. For those familiar with the “Dude Perfect“ channel, here’s hoping that Cotton will be setting up a trick shot during his trip to space!
Too Hot — Did you feel the heat last week? ESA released satellite photos of the temperatures around Europe and The Verge put together a side by side of the receding water levels of Lake Meade. These photos are a shocking reminder of climate change’s effects, one you certainly might not have needed if your AC was broken last week. In a bit of good news, NASA and SpaceX launched experiments to the ISS on July 16th, one of which is a study of how mineral dust in the atmosphere can affect the Earth’s climate and environment. To read more about the details of the experiment, as well as the others aboard the resupply mission, including one about how microgravity affects immune response in human cells, check out NASA’s write-up here.
A Global Space
On Sunday, China launched two lab modules to be attached to their currently, under-construction Tiangong space station. The modules are designed for “science and biology experiments.” However, even as China starts to put more stuff in space, they still have a problem with it coming back down. All eyes are on the sky this weekend as it is expected that Chinese rocket parts will fall back to Earth, destination unknown… again. The Aerospace Corporation is tracking the debris and providing reentry predictions, including that the crash is expected to occur sometime around 2:26pm ET tomorrow. Covered by Loren Grush at The Verge, “the chances of the rocket hitting anyone and killing them are exceedingly rare, but a similar falling Chinese rocket last year sparked major concern worldwide.” We highly recommend reading Loren’s full article for in depth coverage of this story.
For additional insight on China’s space program, this op-ed from The Conversation via Space.com features two scholars discussing their thoughts on why it’s unlikely that China will take over the moon.
Keep an eye towards the sky this weekend - we can’t imagine a worse end to a weekend than getting hit by a piece of a rocket! (And if you want to know the statistical probability of that, check out this piece from The Conversation)
MOONSHOT
If we’re going to get to space, we’re going to need a lot of help. In our Moonshot section, we’ll share highlights from some of the commercial companies that are taking us there:
One of the biggest announcements this week was like the plot of this season of For All Mankind: Relativity Space and Impulse Space announced that they are planning a mission to Mars in less than three years. If successful, this would put them ahead of SpaceX’s timeline and make this the first commercial mission to Mars. What is the mission exactly? To get a Mars Cruise Vehicle and lander, developed by Impulse Space, to the red planet via Relativity Space’s fully reusable Terran-R rocket. For more on the history of this team-up and why this mission and the folks behind it are serious contenders, check out Eric Berger’s article for Ars Technica. (There’s also an animated video of the proposed mission you can watch too - see below!)
But even though Relativity and Impulse want to beat SpaceX to Mars, the company is still making strong headway on its own. Last week, SpaceX launched more Starlink satellites into orbit, its 32nd launch this year, breaking the record it set for itself of 31 launches for the year of 2021. SpaceX was also awarded a contract by NASA to provide the launch service for the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope.
Leave a comment here on Substack with the number of launches you think SpaceX will hit! We’ll give a shirt out to whoever gets it right at the end of the year.
And lastly, an unfortunate headline this week is that Masten Space Systems has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Masten was one of the companies selected to develop a lunar lander for NASA, and will now sell off major assets to an undisclosed competitor. The company recently furloughed its staff earlier this month, and has previously cited supply chain issues as the cause of mission delays. We’ll continue to report on this as the story develops.
Space Tweet of the Week
Space Reads!
Can’t get enough stellar content? Here are some pieces of space-adjacent news we’ve been reading:
From the Atlantic, Marina Koren writes about why not every image from JWST is going to be a breathtaking photo, and how the telescope can detect clouds on other planets made out of sand.
Matthew S. Williams closed out his “Going Interplanetary” series at Interesting Engineering. Each installment explored how humans could live in different parts of our solar system, and in the final installment, he takes a look at how humans might be able to live on Uranus, Neptune, and the very edge of our solar system. With each installment starting off with a greeting as if a flight attendant is welcoming you to a new city, this galaxy tour/thought experiment/science lesson hybrid will educate and entertain!
Jeff Spry reviews Jordan Peele’s “Nope” for Space.com - the latest entry into the sci-fi horror genre (this one’s got UFOs!). If you feel comfortable going to the theaters, go and support original films!
And lastly, you can’t talk about space without talking about… fashion? Jackie Wattles for CNN Business writes about why you can’t go anywhere without bumping into someone wearing NASA merch. (Oh and also Buzz Aldrin’s Apollo 11 moon jacket sold for $2.8 million at a Sotheby’s auction).
And with that, we close out another week of space news! Thanks to all of you wonderful Continuum readers and celestial citizens for checking out our publication. If you are enjoying your subscription, do us a favor and share it with a friend!
Also, a big thank you to Evan Yee for writing this week’s edition with me and providing a deeper dive into the latest JWST news! Thanks to Rahul Rao for his piece on the Artemis Accords and also Helen Floersh for additional writing support.
Keep it celestial people,
Britt
CEO of Celestial Citizen & Creator of Continuum