economy | M Thomas Apple Author Page

Another day, another JAXA failure

April 12, 2023
MThomas

The bankruptcy filing by Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit Holdings Inc (VORB.O) has dealt a blow to Japan’s hopes of building a domestic space industry, with plans for a Kyushu-based spaceport designed to attract tourism on hold for lack of funding.
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/virgin-orbit-bankruptcy-casts-shadow-over-japans-space-dreams-2023-04-07/

Granted, this news is from four or five days ago.

Still, it’s jarring to see TV news about JAXA and NASA doing “joint” explorations of Mars, and then see a constant failure of JAXA to do anything based in Japan.

Something is seriously wrong with this space agency. And I suspect it has nothing to do with the scientists or astronauts.

International asteroid day!

June 30, 2022
MThomas

Today is “International Asteroid Day”!

Who knew?

Asteroids hold large amounts of valuable minerals and metals. That is what International Asteroid Day is raising awareness about on 30 June.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-61985813

Psyche! It might not be as heavy as we thought

March 4, 2022
MThomas

A new study suggests that 16 Psyche, one of the most intriguing and most valuable asteroids we know of, could be covered in iron-spewing volcanoes.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2022/02/24/the-iron-giant-asteroid-worth-more-than-our-global-economy-may-have-an-explosive-secret-say-scientists

Psyche is an asteroid that was probably once the heart of a planet in the early system, one that didn’t survive the violent process of planet formation.

Yep — that “worth more than the global economy” rock in space.

But we’ll have to wait a few years to find out if it’s “less metal and more hard rock” — the Psyche Mission rockets off in August 2022 and the probe won’t arrive for four more years.

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