I wouldn’t normally cover a test firing of a Falcon 9 stage, but this one is kind of important – it marks the first use of Launch Complex 40 since the September 2016 explosion of a Falcon 9 booster destroyed the launch facility. Going back to that explosion, it happened during the same kind of […]
45 Years Ago, The Launch Of Apollo 17
Early in the morning of December 7th, 1972, the final Apollo mission to the Moon, Apollo 17, launched from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center carrying Gene Cernan, Ron Evans, Harrison Schmitt to the Taurus–Littrow lunar valley. Apollo 17’s landing location and planned launch time dictated the first night launch of any manned American […]
The Computer Chronicles – Mainframes to Minis to Micros (1983)
Let’s take a trip back. All the way back, in this case, to the original episode of “The Computer Chronicles” back in 1983. The idea behind the computer chronicles was to cover the then-new field of personal computers. Just what could you do with these little machines, and what was their future? These machines, some […]
Vine To Make A Return? Dear God, No!
My buddy Prince Watercress linked me to an engadget article yesterday discussing how Vine founder Dom Hofmann seems to have teased a “Vine 2.0” if you will – he tweeted just an image in the classic Vine colors that showed “V2.” and.. that’s it. https://twitter.com/dhof/status/938469576052011008 This comes, of course, following him talking some about bring a […]
SpaceX Scheduling Madness
Destiny 2 “Curse of Osiris” Expansion Launch Trailer
Tomorrow marks the launch of the first expansion to Destiny 2 entitled “Curse of Osiris.” Just like Destiny 1, this game is going to give us 2 small expansions to freshen up content over the next few months, and then it’s safe to say next fall, about a year after the launch of the base […]
What I Mean When Discuss The “Cult Of SpaceX”
Voyager 1 Fires Thrusters That Haven’t Been Used In 37 Years!
In a bit of space news that nearly made me tear up, it looks like NASA JPL has been able to successfully fire a thruster system on Voyager 1 that hasn’t been used since 1980! These small rocket motors, designed to fire in long-duration burns for course correction, will be used in upcoming years to […]
When Something Is Called “The Future,” It Never Really Is…
Following behind my previous article about hype culture, I wanted to discuss another trend in how upcoming things are discussed. This is something that goes in well with hype culture but deserves its own little bit of discussion: that is, when someone says something is “the future.” You will hear this one all the time […]
I Can’t Stand Hype Culture
Something that I’ve been wanting to discuss for quite some time is the phenomena of hype being built up around seemingly anything and everything new. Whenever you have something new coming up, you hear about it nonstop, and often times, in retrospect, you have to ask: why did anyone care in the first place? It […]
Looks Like It’s Over For Vidme
With YouTube being in the state it is currently (something I’m long overdue for addressing) many video creators online have been looking for an alternative, and for the past few months it looked like a certain little website known as Vidme would be a good alternative – it looked to work about as well as […]
Voyager: Images from the Odysseys – 2017 NASA JPL Film
40 years ago, the twin Voyager 1 and 2 space probes were just starting on their historic journeys to the outer solar system. Voyager 1 destined to visit Saturn and Jupiter, Voyager 2 destined to not only study those planets, but also to be the first, and still only probe to fly by Uranus and […]
About The Upcoming SpaceX Articles…
So, as I’ve hinted to recently, I’m long overdue on finishing up a rather, shall we say, intense set of articles regarding SpaceX. More correctly, these articles regard the attitude the SpaceX fan base exudes, which is heavily rooted in the way SpaceX pushes itself to the public – a hype culture the company feeds […]
What’s Coming For December 2017 On Xadara
Ah, we’re at the end of the year. Nice. Very nice. It looks like November is being closed out on a few good notes – while the month has been a slightly lighter one for content, I have at least been able to keep an average of an article a day – November is a […]
Skylab: The First 40 Days – 1973 NASA Film (Old Article)
Update 6-23-2018: The original upload channel has been deleted. This article has been replaced by a new one for the 45th anniversary of the Skylab 2 mission here: http://www.xadara.com/skylab-the-first-40-days/ Switching gears just a bit back to space, we have this nice little film from the mid 70’s regarding the first manned Skylab mission. Skylab was […]