— Chris Combs (iterative design enjoyer) (@DrChrisCombs) April 3, 2026
It's good to see America returning to the moon with the launch of Artemis II, after an absence of more than a half-century. Though this mission only entails a fly around, future missions will be landing.
Twenty four Apollo astronauts flew around or landed on the moon between December 1968 and December 1972. Of the twelve who remained in the command module, only one still survives; Fred Haise (92). Of the twelve who walked on the moon, four are living; Buzz Aldrin (96), David Scott (93), John Young (87) and Harrison Schmitt (90).
The astronauts were selected in part, because of their good health, and it is reflected in their longevity. All were born between 1923 and 1936 and were in their 30s and 40s at the time. Even in a worst case assumption that all of five living moon astronauts die this year, the average age for the moon walkers would be 82.7 years and for the circumnavigators 82.3. Under the same assumptions the median age for moon walkers is 86 and for orbiters 89. Ten of the 24 made it to 90, with one more possible, and another five between 87 and 89.
Godspeed and may the mission be a success.
We'll close with The Byrds' tribute to Armstrong, Alden, and Collins; "The team below, that gave the go, they had God's helping hand"
Earlier this week, Apollo 8 astronaut Frank Borman died at the age of 95. Borman had flown on Gemini 7 before being selected to command Apollo 8, the first manned flight to circumnavigate the moon, in December 1968. The Apollo 8 crew were the first humans to see the Earth as pictured above.
Borman is best known for his reading from Genesis, broadcast to Earth on Christmas Eve, of which I wrote previously:
Christmas Eve 1968. Apollo 8 is on its mission carrying the first
humans to escape low Earth orbit and the first to circle the Moon -
Frank Borman, Jim Lovell (later commander of Apollo 13), Bill Anders.
Several
weeks before lift-off the crew had been told that NASA had arranged for
them to do a live Christmas Eve broadcast to the world. When Borman
asked what they should say, all they were advised was that it be "something appropriate".
With the help of the wife of a correspondent friend who had been raised
in a French convent, they decided to read the opening chapters of the
Bible, from Genesis (as explained in the video below). No one on the
ground at NASA was aware of what they would say, until they started
reading. For many reasons, this would not happen today, both from a
process and substance perspective.
After reading the opening verses of Genesis, the crew closed with its own benediction:
And
from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry
Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on this Good Earth.
Hearing
those words, in those circumstances, had a huge emotional impact on
those who heard it, and it still affects me when I listen to it more
than 50 years later.
The video below tells the story, followed by
what listeners heard on December 24, 1968. All of the Apollo 8
astronauts are still alive, Borman and Lovell at age 92, and Anders at
87.
(Text read by crew of Apollo 8)
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon
the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light
from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters,
and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were
under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament:
and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the
morning were the second day.
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together
unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of
the waters called the Seas: and God saw that it was good.
Jim Lovell, who flew with Borman on Apollo 8, and is best-known as the commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13, is now the oldest surviving Apollo astronaut, a week younger than Borman. Marilyn, Lovell's wife of 71 years, passed away two months ago. Borman was also married for 71 years before his wife passed in 2021. The third Apollo 8 crewman, Bill Anders, just turned 90. Anders has been married to his wife, Valerie, for 68 years.
Along with Lovell and Anders there are five other surviving crew from the 24 astronauts who flew on the nine Apollo missions which orbited and/or landed on the moon:
Apollo 10 - Thomas Stafford (93)
Apollo 11 - Buzz Aldrin (93)
Apollo 15 - David Scott (91)
Apollo 16 - Charles Duke (88)
Apollo 17 - Harrison Schmitt (88)
Ken Mattingly, scrubbed at the last minute from Apollo 13, and Command Module Pilot on Apollo 16, passed ten days ago.
On this date (Eastern Standard Time) in 1972, Eugene Cernan became the last person to walk on the moon. Cernan was commander of Apollo 17, the last manned lunar flight, and it was his third spaceflight, the first being Gemini 9A in 1966, the second, Apollo 10, which circled the moon in 1969. Reentering the lunar module just before Cernan was Harrison Schmitt, the only surviving astronaut from the mission (he's now 87). Ronald Evans was in the command module circling the moon.
Who thought at the time that a half-century later we would not have returned to the moon?
(Below, Eugene Cernan)
This is Cernan (with Schmitt) speaking from the moon. About 4 minutes in he unveils the plaque, shown at the top of this post, that was left behind. It's still there, ready to be read by the next visitors. You can watch and listen to the eloquent Cernan speaking about his experience here.
The video below shows the separation of the James Webb Space Telescope from the Ariane 5 launch vehicle provide by the European Space Agency. Just over a minute in you can see the Webb's solar array deploy.
Launched on December 25, the Webb will take about a month to reach its permanent position, almost a million miles from Earth (more than three times further than the distant from Earth to the Moon). That position is designed to be near equilibrium between the gravitational pull of the Earth and Sun.
The Webb will be able to peer much deeper into the universe than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, and with greater clarity. Effectively, it will be able to see much further back in time, closer to the birth of the universe. Can't wait to see the pictures and learn about the new discoveries.
I'm left behind when I should have been there Walking with you
Michael Collins, one of the three Apollo 11 astronauts, has passed at the age of 90. Collins remained alone in the Apollo Command Module for 21 hours while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended and returned from the lunar surface in the Lunar Exploration Module (L.E.M.). Of that time the mission log reads, "Not since Adam has any human known such solitude as Mike Collins". Buzz Aldrin is now the lone mission survivor.
(Armstrong, Collins, Aldrin)
The lyrics are from For Michael Collins, Jeffrey and Me by Jethro Tull.
Christmas Eve 1968. Apollo 8 is on its mission carrying the first humans to escape low Earth orbit and the first to circle the Moon - Frank Borman, Jim Lovell (later commander of Apollo 13), Bill Anders.
Several weeks before lift-off the crew had been told that NASA had arranged for them to do a live Christmas Eve broadcast to the world. When Borman asked what they should say, all they were advised was that it be "something appropriate". With the help of the wife of a correspondent friend who had been raised in a French convent, they decided to read the opening chapters of the Bible, from Genesis (as explained in the video below). No one on the ground at NASA was aware of what they would say, until they started reading. For many reasons, this would not happen today, both from a process and substance perspective.
After reading the opening verses of Genesis, the crew closed with its own benediction:
And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you, all of you on this Good Earth.
Hearing those words, in those circumstances, had a huge emotional impact on those who heard it, and it still affects me when I listen to it more than 50 years later.
The video below tells the story, followed by what listeners heard on December 24, 1968. All of the Apollo 8 astronauts are still alive, Borman and Lovell at age 92, and Anders at 87.
(Text read by crew of Apollo 8)
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon
the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light
from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters,
and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were
under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament:
and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the
morning were the second day.
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together
unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of
the waters called the Seas: and God saw that it was good.
Something is going on with red supergiant star Betelgeuse (not the guy in the movie). It's getting unusually dimmer at an unprecedented rate. Astronomers have already predicted that the star will explode in a supernova sometime in the next 100,000 years; perhaps it is entering its death throes.
Since Betelgeuse is 700 light years from Earth it is already possible it exploded at some point in the past seven centuries and we just don't know it you. That time travel stuff is tricky.
Better keep an eye on things. You can read morehere.
Taken
about three miles north of Vandenberg Air Force Base,
the image follows plumes and exhaust from the first
and second stage of a SpaceX
Falcon 9 rocket
rising through southern California's early evening skies.
In the fading twilight, the reddish smoke drifting in the foreground
at the right is from the initial ascent of the rocket.
The expanding blue and orange filamentary plumes are from
first and second stage separation and the first stage
boostback burn,
still in sunlight at extreme altitudes.
But the bright spot below center is the second stage itself
headed almost directly away from the camera,
accelerating to orbital velocity and far downrange.
Pulsed thrusters form the upside down V-shape at the top
as they guide the reusable Falcon 9 first stage
back to the landing site.
Space X is the company started by Elon Musk. The Falcon 9 rocket is the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V used to launch American astronauts to the moon. Exciting stuff. Good to see someone take up space exploration.
Whoa! The two boosters from the Spacex Falcon Heavy land in Florida. I guess you need two boosters if you're going to launch a Tesla into space.
[Correction: Actually three boosters per the comment by The Scotsman.}
There is mounting evidence that Voyager 1 (launched in 1977) may have become the first spacecraft to exit the Solar System.
While NASA has not yet officially declared that the spacecraft has passed the threshold the linked article cites the data indicating the three criteria that must be met have either happened or are on the verge of occurring.
1. An increase in high-energy cosmic rays originating from outside our solar system 2. A drop in charged particles emanating from the sun. 3. A change in the direction of the magnetic field.
This link takes you to a pretty nifty time-elapsed video of the 12 mile journey of the space shuttle Endeavor from LA International Airport to the Los Angeles Science Center. Very well done.
Actually, this is a 1964 photo taken in the Nevada desert. Pictured are, from left to right, astronauts Frank Borman, Neil Armstrong, John Young and Deke Slayton. They are modeling parachute silks and look like the inspiration for the Jedi Knights.
Frank Borman was the commander of the Apollo 8 mission which was the first to orbit the moon and transmitted back the dramatic photos of the Earth.
You all know Neil Armstrong.
John Young was the first person to make six spaceflights, including commanding a Gemini mission, landing on the moon during the Apollo program and piloting the first Space Shuttle flight.
Deke Slayton was one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts (of "The Right Stuff "fame) but was grounded in 1962 by a heart murmur. He went on to become NASA's Director of Flight Crew Operations, selecting the crews for each mission, including the first landing on the moon. He was finally cleared for space operations and in 1975 was the docking module pilot for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
Travel about 1.3 billion light years and through 400,000 galaxies (each point of light) in about two minutes. Then think about it and you. The relative clustering and spatial relationships of the galaxies are accurately portrayed.
Done by Miguel Aragon of Johns Hopkins University with Mark Subbarao of the Adler Planetarium and Alex Szalay of Johns Hopkins via Open Culture and NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Uh . . the news anchor was a little bit off - Curiosity actually traveled more than 350million miles to land on Mars early this morning. Here's the story of the landing and what happens next:
No wonder the folks in the control room at NASA were so excited. The task of landing the Rover was extremely complex and if any one operation in a long chain of actions had gone wrong it would not have succeeded. It's way beyond my comprehension to understand those complexities but it is pretty cool.
This is my recent post on the mission which includes a video explaining the technical challenges.
On August 5, NASA's Curiosity Rover is scheduled to land on Mars. Curiosity is on a mission to determine whether Mars was ever able to support microbial life. This is the most advanced Rover we've put into space. The technological challenge of landing on Mars is immense and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has produced a video to explain how they are doing it.
(Photo taken from Apollo 8, December 24, 1968) 
(From Astronomy Picture of the Day) 
Frank Borman was the commander of the Apollo 8 mission which was the first to orbit the moon and transmitted back the dramatic photos of the Earth.