"Hey did you put that manikin of Jack Lousma into the Skylab mock-up?" "Sure did boss, real fuckin sexy just like you asked" "What"

the five daily prayers in space issue was basically solved by saying “do your best to face mecca and if you can’t do that face earth because that’s where mecca is”

new EPISODE about DROPPING a SOCKET with @angryscooter77.bsky.social

Seems like a good signal for me to start the "History of Space Omens" script.

The first Skylab crew launches May 25, 1973. Joe Kerwin, Pete Conrad, and Paul Weitz on board. contactlight.de

Went down a rabbit hole so enjoy this dumb thread: Everyone knows Mars hates probes. They fail to get there with alarming regularity. But the Soviet and Russian space programs had a problem seemingly unique to them: missions failing before they even left Earth orbit (or failing to get there at all)

New episode! We're joined by @jkass99.bsky.social of Lions Led By Donkeys to talk about how the Soviet Manned Lunar Program ended: suddenly, in a Death of Stalin-esque coup masterminded by 𝕄𝕆𝕄. open.spotify.com/episode/71Fi...

Looking at their S1 and if I were one of the rocket/sat folks at SpaceX (ie the only people in Musk's corporate empire that generally produce a reliable product for an operating profit), I'd be kinda pissed with being told the goofs at xAI are the real value-add and future of the company.

Seeing the media hail the mixed results (some progress, some setbacks) of the 12th test launch of a rocket as an unequivocal and complete success and then thinking about how the N1 is forever known as a horrible, doomed-from-the-start design after it failed 4 times.

Pictured: the valiant crew of Zond 5 RIP to the crew of Zond 6 (parachute failure)

New episode! We're joined by @jkass99.bsky.social of Lions Led By Donkeys to talk about how the Soviet Manned Lunar Program ended: suddenly, in a Death of Stalin-esque coup masterminded by 𝕄𝕆𝕄. open.spotify.com/episode/71Fi...

The NASA Administrator says the space industry needs to move more urgently. Meanwhile, NASA's workforce has been reduced by 20%, science is being dismantled, key advisory committees are being dissolved, and his own government keeps wanting to cut his budget. aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/institute/na...

On splashdown day, I took a picture with the true hero of Artemis II, the collapsible contingency urinal.

Current fuel crisis got us thinking about a different fuel crisis and how it led to NASA Truck Testing®™. Tragically, NASA has so far refused to meet the challenge of today's crisis

ICYMI: Recreating Canada's most deranged children's show from the '90s with @failuretolaunch.bsky.social youtube.com/shorts/j-L7x... #canada #canadian #culture #history #podcast #uhoh #ytv #thepunisher #goo #gimp #slime

Mars' southern hemisphere from the departing Psyche spacecraft on May 16th. flic.kr/p/2sdXi1n

O.Chris, discussing 40K in the next bonus episode, trying to remember a character's name: "Claviculus Bile" Accidentally creating the greatest Wrath & Glory character ever devised

Every spaceflight disaster report: we have identified the cause of the failure as This One Guy Who Screwed Up. He has been fired and therefore nothing else needs to be changed whatsoever. Their QC/QA process:

Andrei Kalinvosky (quoted multiple times on the linked page) who was the Director General at Angara's prime developer, was sentenced to 7 years in absentia for fraud. DETAILS: www.russianspaceweb.com/angara-produ...

Found a Chinese not-Lego company with an entire line of rocket cross-section kits and every single one of them makes rockets look WAY cooler than they actually are. All glowing fusion reactors inside oxidizer tanks and SRB warp drives. I worry for the future engineers raised on these kits.

In which Kelly and Quinn force the Chrises to relive a goo-based Canadian childrens' show. Check it out!

Why do the ideas always come to me just too late? Could talk about Anna Lee Fisher, first human mom in space. Could talk about Albinia, the first mammalian mom in space. Or Miss Baker. Or Strelka. Anyway, here's Sergey, the MOM (Министерство общего машиностроения) of the Soviet space program.

Incredible resource of old spy sat photos. Would highly recommend checking it out. Seen here: the N1 launch pads at Site 110 of Baikonur Cosmodrome, taken in Feb 1974 just a few months before the program was suddenly shut down after Glushko couped Mishin.

New Video! youtube.com/shorts/SJ7oG... A short of Artemis II core stage separation sped up 5X.

AND after you listen to the @failuretolaunch.bsky.social installment and still want more space, here's our latest #TalkingSpace: we wrap up Artemis II, what may be next, and talk about Australia's space program aspirations. Episode 1802: Fly US To The Moon www.talkingspaceonline.com/episode-1802...

Kazakh media report that countdown to the Soyuz-5 launch involved a relocation of a falcon nest with 4 eggs from a flame duct under the pad as a group of birds watched from above. Falcon is "sunkar" in Kazakh, also happens to be a Kazakh name for Soyuz-5: www.russianspaceweb.com/sunkar.html

New episode! This week, we were joined by space analyst @genejm1017.bsky.social of the @talkingspace.bsky.social to go over the most recent attempt to gut NASA by the Trump admin and the space advocacy groups stepping up to stop the cuts. open.spotify.com/episode/5Ryv...

Check this out to see a video of a dude wearing a Krechet spacesuit flopping around in a vomit comet while relaxing music plays

A contractor involved in establishing Angara production line in the city of Omsk is arrested for stealing more than $7 million in three years. DETAILS, CONTEXT: www.russianspaceweb.com/angara-produ...

Artemis III: technicians at Kennedy Space Center complete operations of lifting and lowering the SLS (Space Launch System) core stage into High Bay 2 in the Vehicle Assembly Building on Monday, May 4, 2026. Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux images.nasa.gov/details/KSC-... #Artemis 🧪🔭

As for what happened to those final N1 boosters, they were scrapped and a bunch of the parts were used as sheds at the cosmodrome Image courtesy of @anatolyzak.bsky.social's website. I am also attempting to OSINT this image on google earth but don't know if the sheds are still there.

While this is the 1M1 mockup instead of the actual 8L booster, it's still very useful to see how the people on the program were working on the N1 right up to the end. In fact, many were enthusiastic that the 5th launch would be the winner, unaware that by 1974, the Kremlin had soured on the program

Comparative figures from the CIA (circa 1971) and actual dimensions of N1. From 'Challenge to Apollo' (p. 793)

More Americans have doubts the Moon Landings were real (29%) than want the ballroom. Really curious how those 29% line up with the telepathic 29%

Deciding that I need to give Metal Gear Solid a chance after finding out that it has Soviet inter-OKB conflicts and a character who is a perfect mix of Vladimir Chelomey (suit, medals, hair) and Sergei Korolev (fat).

OK, so I wasn't in the control room for OSIRIS-REx, but I'm prettttty sure this is exactly what went down when the spacecraft tried to collect a sample from asteroid Bennu 🛰️🍽️.

Soyuz upper stage (2026-093B) from the launch of the Progress MS-34 supply ship to the ISS two days earlier

Wan Hu 🤝 Nikolai Kibalchich 🤝 Cromwell's Brother-in-Law Making space plans way way ahead of the technical requirements to pull them off.

In honour of years of service, we need to get this man at least another twelve [12] podcasts to make themes for.

We can think of very few podcasts that have had a real world positive impact and meaningfully made a difference. @knowledgefight.bsky.social definitely tops that list. A lot of Alex's downfall wouldn't have happened without them. They've earned the rest and we're excited for whatever comes next.

Some little part of me was worried that they'd just go with "Gay Frogs" tier stuff but this is a ᴘᴏᴡᴇʀꜰᴜʟ and nuanced understanding of Alex. Completing the trifecta would be Tim eating a hoagie through a full interview and reading an article before going "... ... ... and it goes on."

Listen to @bloodwork.show

This is cool. A team of 90 young people from the @sydney.edu.au Rocket Club have been working on building another one of their sounding rockets for months now. They finally got to launch it, and it successfully reached an altitude of ~3km. Rocket is named after an Aussie bird - the Galah!

New episode! @thefuzzymaskedman.bsky.social from @worstpossible.world talks Michael Moore's "Canadian Bacon," in which an unpopular U.S. president (Alan Alda) wages cold war against Canada—as an intrepid American sheriff (John Candy) decides to become the tip of the spear. youtu.be/fSf4N_5GQHY

“this whole thing smacks of Burt Rutan,” i holler as i overturn my uncle’s varieze and turn scaled composites into shit composites

Okay, here's a *really* rough look at some of the different types of Soviet space orgs, shown here with just the Korolev-related ones. There's a bunch more stuff I couldn't fit like "NII-filials" and "Generic KBs", but they're less relevant. Every other main OKB also had networks like this.

No fan of his but it's kinda funny seeing Isaacman try to simultaneously juggle "We're Making NASA Great Again and doing Big Bold Science" and "We need to slash NASA's budget to the lowest level in 60 years"

Driving myself lightly insane trying to make sense of the Soviet space industry naming conventions and made the wonderful discovery that before 1946, everything in the USSR was an NK (People's Commissariat). The NKVD was Stalin's feared secret police force. The NKVT handled foreign trade.

Talked about this very thing with the folks on the @failuretolaunch.bsky.social show upcoming. The cost is like a "drop in the bucket." It would make zero sense to scrub it now. However, we live in times that also make zero sense. The good news is that the '27 NASA Budget is DOA in Congress.