The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, legendary astronaut and former Grand Marshall of the Ridgewood 4th of July Parade Buzz Aldrin celebrated his 93rd birthday by marrying his longtime girlfriend Anca Faur, 63. Aldrin, who was the second person to walk on the Moon after Neil Armstrong, shared the exciting news on Twitter, revealing that the lovebirds got hitched in an intimate ceremony in Los Angeles, Calif.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, NASA announced Wednesday it has issued an award to The Boeing Company for the agency’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project, which seeks to inform a potential new generation of green single-aisle airliners.
Continue reading Boeing and NASA to Work on Low Emissions Sustainable Flight Technologies
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Cape Canaveral FL, NASA’s Space Launch System rocket took off at 1:47 AM from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Wednesday. The event marks a major success for NASA’s Artemis program to return to the Moon. The SLS carried its Orion capsule to an altitude of just under 4,000 kilometers before the two craft separated and the core stage of the rocket fell back to Earth. Orion will orbit the Moon for several days before splashing down to the ocean on December 11. NASA plans to launch the first crewed Moon landings since 1972 in 2025.
Continue reading Join NASA for International Observe the Moon Night
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Laurel, Maryland, after 10 months flying in space, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) – the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration – successfully impacted its asteroid target on Monday, the agency’s first attempt to move an asteroid in space.
Continue reading NASA’s DART Mission Hits Asteroid in First-Ever Planetary Defense Test
Continue reading Repairs Continue as NASA Prepares for Next Artemis I Launch Opportunity
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Cape Canaveral FL, NASA on Monday delayed the launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., because of a fuel leak in one of the rocket’s engines.
NASA is heading back to the moon. Earthlings have not visited since 1972 and at 8:33am ET from the Kennedy Space Center, the agency is set to launch its new moon rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket ever built. The uncrewed Artemis I mission will head toward the moon and complete one and a half orbits during its 42-day mission.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, NASA and Rocket Lab will fly a privately built satellite to a special orbit that is neatly balanced between the gravity of the Earth and the Moon. The mission will test out the parameters of this orbit and verify its stability. NASA intends to assemble a small space station in the orbit. This will be the first interplanetary mission launched by a small liquid-fueled rocket. More details about the mission are available in the article.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, gardeners of the world rejoice ,scientists have grown plants in lunar soil using samples collected during the Apollo missions to the moon. The scientists grew thale cress, a small flowering plant that is attractive to researchers as it is well studied and its genetic code has been mapped. Almost all of the plants planted in the lunar soil sprouted. However, the plants showed signs of struggle and stress. Growing plants in the lunar soil could alter the moon’s soil and make resources from the soil available in useful forms.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope team fully deployed its 21-foot, gold-coated primary mirror, successfully completing the final stage of all major spacecraft deployments to prepare for science operations.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope launched at 7:20 a.m. EST Saturday on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, South America.
A joint effort with ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency, the Webb observatory is NASA’s revolutionary flagship mission to seek the light from the first galaxies in the early universe and to explore our own solar system, as well as planets orbiting other stars, called exoplanets.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Unlike Icarus who forgot his father’s warnings, and started flying higher and higher, until the wax that held his wings together started melting under the scorching sun. For the first time in history, a spacecraft has touched the Sun. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has now flown through the Sun’s upper atmosphere – the corona – and sampled particles and magnetic fields there.
Continue reading NASA Enters the Solar Atmosphere for the First Time, Bringing New Discoveries
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, NASA is taking a step toward the next era of space communications with the launch of its Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) on Sunday, Dec. 5. Live coverage of the launch is scheduled to air on NASA Television, the agency’s website, and the NASA App beginning at 3:30 a.m. EST.
Continue reading NASA to Demonstrate Laser Communications in Space
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, NASA’s Juno spacecraft has revealed that Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot extends hundreds of miles into the planet. The storm’s diameter is about 10,000 miles wide and between 186 and 310 miles deep. It is so large that the Juno spacecraft was able to measure the small perturbations in gravity produced by the storm as it passed over. These gravity signals were combined with previous microwave measurements to calculate the depth of the storm. While the storm is deep, it is not nearly as deep as some of the surrounding jet streams which extend up to 1,800 miles into the planet.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Nanoracks, Voyager Space, and Lockheed Martin are planning to build a free-flying private space station in low Earth orbit by 2027. Starlab will be a tourist destination as well as a research and manufacturing hub. It will feature a habitat module with 12,000 cubic feet of internal volume, a power and propulsion element, a laboratory setup, and a large external robotic arm to service payloads and cargo. NASA wants commercial stations to pick up the slack from the ISS as the outpost is due to be retired near the end of the decade.
