January 23, 2025 – NeRDs Moonbase

NASA honors fallen astronauts with ‘Day of Remembrance’ ceremony

January 23, 2025 NeRD

NASA honored its fallen space explorers during its annual “Day of Remembrance” on Thursday (Jan. 23). The agency held events at a number of its facilities around the nation, including Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida and Johnson Space Center in Houston. The proceedings commemorated the lives lost in NASA’s three space tragedies — the Apollo 1 fire in January 1967, the space shuttle Challenger explosion in January 1986 and the shuttle Columbia disaster in February 2003. “It is an emotional and solemn reminder that we cannot let the decades…

Growing up and going out: Beyond the cradle (op-ed)

January 23, 2025 NeRD

Rick Tumlinson is the founder of SpaceFund, a venture capital firm investing in space startups. He also founded the Space Frontier Foundation, Earthlight Foundation, and New Worlds Institute and was a founding board member of the X Prize Foundation. He contributed the following piece — an edited essay from his upcoming book “Why Space: The Purpose of People,” to be published in the spring of 2025 — to Space.com’s Expert Voices section. My daughter is about to turn 12. To her, I am an ancient being; to me, she is…

‘Star Wars: Episode I: Jedi Power Battles’ continues to be the most fascinating ‘The Phantom Menace’ tie-in video game

January 23, 2025 NeRD

Somehow, Jedi Power Battles has returned. This won’t ring a bell if you’re a Star Wars fan who’s stuck to only the best Star Wars games of all time over the years, but many Jedi veterans will celebrate this return to a profoundly off-beat action romp which revisited The Phantom Menace as a ‘beat ’em up‘ game. The developer-publisher Aspyr is no stranger to bringing retro Star Wars video games back from the dead, and, so far, the wins outweigh the failures. Last year, Aspyr worked with Lucasfilm Games to…

NASA JPL Prepping for Full Year of Launches, Mission Milestones

January 23, 2025 NeRD

NASA JPL is readying for, clockwise from lower right, the launches of CADRE (its engineering models are seen here), Lunar Trailblazer, NISAR (seen in an artist’s concept), Sentinel-6B (artist’s concept), and SPHEREx, as well as the Mars gravity assist of Europa Clipper (artist’s concept). NASA/JPL-Caltech/BAE Systems/Lockheed Martin Space Missions will study everything from water on the Moon to the transformation of our universe after the big bang and ongoing changes to Earth’s surface. With 2024 receding into the distance, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is already deep into a busy 2025.…

NASA Worm as Art

January 23, 2025 NeRD

Museum of Modern Art Opens Exhibition Featuring NASA Worm The iconic NASA logotype, commonly known as the worm and designed by Bruce Blackburn and Richard Danne in 1976, made its premiere Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2025 at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York as part of the museum’s new exhibition “Pirouette: Turning Points in Design,” which runs through Oct. 18. MoMA accessioned the logotype for its permanent collection, as well as the original NASA Graphics Standards Manual published in 1976, also gifted by NASA. The exhibit also includes…

NASA Tests Air Traffic Surveillance Technology Using Its Pilatus PC-12 Aircraft

January 23, 2025 NeRD

3 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Equipped with state-of-the-art technology to test and evaluate communication, navigation, and surveillance systems NASA’s Pilatus PC-12 performs touch-and-go maneuvers over a runway at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California on Sept. 23, 2024. Researchers will use the data to understand Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) signal loss scenarios for air taxi flights in urban areas. To prepare for ADS-B test flights pilots and crew from NASA Armstrong and NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, ran a series of…