Star Ships Are Meant To Fly

Starship liftoff SpaceX’s Starship lifts off on its Flight 12 mission May 22. (credit: SpaceX) Starships are meant to eventually fly by Jeff Foust Tuesday, May 26, 2026 In a week filled with remarkable events for SpaceX, perhaps the strangest was the cameo appearance last Thursday during the company’s webcast for the latest Starship launch attempt. On a previous flight, it was Elon Musk who dropped by the webcast; this time, it was… Nicki Minaj? For all the focus on Starships and other rockets, the prospectus showed SpaceX today is a company that makes the majority of its revenue on telecommunications and spends most of its money on artificial intelligence. Yes, it was the singer whose claim to fame was the song “Starship,” recorded long before SpaceX publicly announced plans for a vehicle that would eventually become Starship. While this was the 12th test flight of Starship/Super Heavy, this was the first that Minaj attended—or any launch, for that matter, she said. “This is a lot of fun. I'm excited,” she said, wearing a SpaceX Starship shirt. “Major shout out to Elon. Elon, thank you for everything that you're doing for humanity.” Alas, on that day Starship was not meant to fly. The countdown got stuck in a cycle where it exited a hold at T-40 seconds only to stop and return to the T-40 mark several times before SpaceX scrubbed the launch for the day. The company later said a hydraulic pin that holds an umbilical arm on the launch tower in place failed to retract, keeping the arm from swinging away. The scrub was an interlude between two key events for SpaceX that week. The day before, it released its long-awaited prospectus for its initial public offering, providing the first official, detailed look at the company’s finances and ambitions. For all the focus on Starships and other rockets, the prospectus showed SpaceX today is a company that makes the majority of its revenue on telecommunications and spends most of its money on artificial intelligence. In 2025, SpaceX recorded $18.7 billion in revenue, with $11.4 billion coming from its connectivity business line, which includes Starlink, compared to $4.1 billion from space—launches and services like Dragon missions—and $3.2 billion from AI, which comes from the xAI acquisition earlier this year. Starlink, as many expected, is a cash cow for the company. The connectivity business reported an operating income of $4.4 billion in 2025, up from $2 billion in 2024. Space has an operating loss of $657 million in 2025 because of Starship expenditures—$3 billion in 2025 alone—although that part of SpaceX broke even in 2024. However, AI has an operating loss of nearly $6.4 billion for the year. The company had an overall net loss in 2025 of $4.9 billion, counting interest and other expenses, but was profitable in 2024: a net income of $791 million. What was also remarkable about the prospectus is the company’s vast ambitions. “We believe we have identified the largest actionable total addressable market (TAM) in human history,” it stated, with that market totalling $28.5 trillion worldwide. By comparison, the World Bank estimated the gross domestic product of the United States in 2024 at $28.75 billion. The vast majority of that addressable market is in AI: $26.5 trillion, mostly in enterprise applications. Connectivity accounted for $1.6 trillion while space came in at just $370 billion: a little more than 1% of the overall market that Space envisions. Yet the document made clear that without space, there is no massive SpaceX TAM. While the market for selling launches and related services might be tiny compared to connectivity and AI, it is essential to both of those markets since SpaceX needs those capabilities for its own products and services. Starship liftoff Starship during its brief time in space on Flight 12. (credit: SpaceX) And that future depends on Starship. “Any failure or delay in the development of Starship at scale or in achieving the required launch cadence, reusability and capabilities thereafter would delay or limit our ability to execute our growth strategy, including the deployment of next-generation satellites, global satellite-to-mobile connectivity, and orbital AI compute, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and future prospects,” the company stated. “Achieving our targeted launch cadence will require significant progress on several key milestones and the continued investment of significant capital resources,” the company stated. While SpaceX has built up its connectivity business using Falcon 9 launches, it is depending on Starship to launch larger future-generation Starlink satellites with greater throughput and direct-to-device capabilities that will allow broadband connectivity directly to smartphones. “Our current operational rockets, including Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, are not capable of deploying V3 satellites and V2 Mobile satellites,” the company said in the prospectus. However, a Starship will be able to carry 60 of the V3 broadband satellites and 50 of the V2 Mobile satellites. Likewise, SpaceX’s ambitions for orbital data centers also require Starship. Moreover, the company said that while failing to achieve full reusability for Starship—yet to be demonstrated since the Starship upper stage has not been recovered on its test flights so far—would increase costs for Starlink, “AI compute satellites at scale need full Starship reusability to be economically compelling.” “Achieving our targeted launch cadence will require significant progress on several key milestones and the continued investment of significant capital resources,” the company stated, adding it faces “a number of material challenges and uncertainties” to do so. That was on display Friday when SpaceX made its second attempt to launch Starship. This vehicle is the first version 3 model of Starship, with significant upgrades to both the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage, including the introduction of new Raptor 3 engines. For Super Heavy, the changes included an integrated “hot staging” ring at the top of the booster that remains attached after stage separation rather than detach as it had previously; the ring allows exhaust from the Starship upper stage’s engines to escape when the engines ignite before stage separation. The booster also has three, rather than four, grid fins that are larger and will also be used to catch the booster when it returns to the launch site. The Starship upper stage has a redesigned propulsion system to address the fires seen on some V2 flights and also accommodate larger propellant tanks. Other upgrades include docking ports to allow Starships to dock with each other in orbit and transfer propellant, a key technology for missions beyond Earth orbit, including lunar landing missions. Starship liftoff Starship making its “soft splashdown” in the Indian Ocean. (credit: SpaceX) Starship V3 is also intended to be the vehicle that SpaceX will put into service, carrying up to 100 tons of payload to low Earth orbit. Those flights could begin in the second half of this year, deploying Starlink satellites and carrying propellant for in-space transfer tests. The countdown the second time around—this time, without a cameo by Minaj—went smoothly, and at 6:30 pm EDT the vehicle lifted off. The ascent appeared to go smoothly but was not without incident: one of the 33 Raptor engines shut down about 100 seconds into flight, but the vehicle continued to climb. At stage separation, Super Heavy was supposed to perform a “boostback” burn: while SpaceX did not plan to return the booster to the launch site, they wanted to demonstrate maneuvers leading to a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. However, the booster appeared to suffer multiple engine failures—possibly an engine failure that took out neighboring engines—and the maneuver ended early. Super Heavy plummeted to Earth, with telemetry showing it traveling at nearly 1,500 kilometers per hour just before it hit the water. One of the six Raptor engines on the Starship upper stage also shut down early in its burn. The other five engines continued to fire for about a minute beyond the scheduled shutdown time. “It does look like we are within bounds of what we analyzed” if an engine failed, said SpaceX’s Dan Huot during the webcast. “I wouldn’t call it nominal orbital insertion, but we’re on a trajectory that we had analyzed, and it’s within bounds.” SpaceX has invested $15 billon on Starship so far, including $3 billion last year and nearly $1 billion in the first quarter of 2026. It was good enough for one of the mission’s goals. While on its suborbital arc, Starship’s “Pez” payload door opened and the vehicle ejected 20 Starlink mass simulators. It also deployed two “Dodger Dog” spacecraft, so named because their cylindrical propellant tanks extended beyond their body. They were equipped with camera intended to inspect while in space. SpaceX did not attempt a relight of a Raptor engine, as planned, but the spacecraft handled reentry with few issues. It made its “soft” splashdown under propulsion in the Indian Ocean, tipping over and exploding as expected to conclude the 66-minute flight. Well before this Flight 12 mission, SpaceX officials had suggested that it might move ahead with an orbital launch attempt. However, the Raptor malfunctions suggest at least one more suborbital test flight might be needed before trying to do an orbital launch, let alone an orbital launch where both the booster and ship return to land at Starbase. SpaceX has invested $15 billon on Starship so far, including $3 billion last year and nearly $1 billion in the first quarter of 2026, the company revealed in its prospectus. Despite the development struggles, there is no turning back now: the company’s future, including its trillion-dollar valuation as it goes public in the coming weeks, depends on Starship, even if launch is just small part of the company's business. Starships are meant to make SpaceX’s IPO fly. Jeff Foust (jeff@thespacereview.com) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior staff writer with SpaceNews. He also operates the Spacetoday.net web site. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone. Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarantee that

Fear And Panic In Orbit Around Mars

Phobos Phobos is one of two mysterious moons of Mars. Over the decades many robotic and human missions have been proposed to visit the moons, but only now is a Japanese mission about to head to Phobos. Here, planetary scientist Paul Byrne blows up Phobos, just because he can. (credit: Paul Byrne) Fear and panic in orbit around the Red Planet: Missions to Phobos and Deimos by Dwayne A. Day Tuesday, May 26, 2026 They are named for the Greek gods of fear and panic, and flight. Phobos and Deimos are small moons orbiting Mars that have long harbored a mysterious secret. Where did they come from? Are they captured moons, drawn in by Mars’ gravitational pull, or are they pieces of Mars itself, thrown off the planet by a massive collision? There have been many proposals to send both robotic and human missions to the moons of Mars, but a Japanese mission launching later this year should finally help to answer this mystery. Phobos Phobos has been imaged numerous times by Mars orbiting spacecraft. (credit: ESA) Origins The two moons of Mars were discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall, an American astronomer. The larger moon, Phobos, is irregularly shaped and has a mean radius of 11 kilometers, orbiting only 6,000 kilometers above Mars. Phobos is much more heavily cratered than Deimos, including a large crater named Stickney, which is nine kilometers in diameter. Whatever hit Phobos and created Stickney Crater probably nearly shattered the tiny moon. Some scientists believe that Phobos could contain volatiles. Deimos is smaller and further from Mars. It has not been the focus of as much interest as its larger brother. Settling the mystery requires retrieving samples from one of the moons and bringing them back to Earth for analysis. In 1969, Mariner 9 photographed Phobos, followed by Viking 1 in 1977. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union sent two missions to study the moons, with one of them photographing Phobos in 1989. Phobos, and to a lesser extent Deimos, have since been imaged by numerous other orbiting spacecraft such as Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Express, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, India’s Mars Orbiting Mission, as well as by rovers on the Martian surface, looking up. These spacecraft rarely get close to the moons, so high-quality images are produced only every few years. In 2025, Mars Express produced some spectacular images of Phobos with Mars in the background. Scientists have two competing theories about the origins of Phobos and Deimos. One theory is that they are captured asteroids and fell into Mars’s gravity well and could not escape. Neptune’s moon Triton is also believed to be a captured object, although the evidence for Triton’s origin is stronger than for Phobos and Deimos. The other theory is that Phobos and Deimos are originally pieces of Mars, blown into space by a massive impact in the planet’s past. Phobos Because of Phobos' low gravity, astronauts cannot walk on its surface but would need some kind of mobility system. Space artist Pat Rawlings depicted a cage-like device in this 1990s illustration. (credit: Pat Rawlings) Although there are advocates for both origin stories for the Martian moons, the only scientific consensus is that the evidence is not overwhelming for either theory. Settling the mystery requires retrieving samples from one of the moons and bringing them back to Earth for analysis. Phobos is also covered in Mars dust sent into orbit by impacts, meaning that a sample return mission can also bring back Mars dust. From a scientific standpoint, a robotic sample return mission could answer the mystery of the origin of the moons. From a human exploration standpoint, missions to the moons have been proposed for several reasons, including practice for an eventual Mars landing mission, as well as a potential water resource. Fear and panic and flight Phobos has featured in fiction many times, in English as well as French, German, Italian, and other languages. Edgar Rice Burrows included Phobos (named Thuria) in Swords of Mars, his eighth Barsoom series novel. Arthur C. Clarke wrote the short story “Hide and Seek” in 1949 about an astronaut who lands on Phobos to hide from aliens. In his 1951 novel Sands of Mars, Clarke featured a plot about turning Phobos into a second sun that will heat the red planet, an idea he later revisited in his novel 2010: Odyssey Two. Probably most famously, Phobos was the location of the popular 1990s video game Doom, as well as a forgettable movie by the same name, and several sequel games. The 1966 book Colossus, by Dennis Feltham Jones, spawned the 1970 movie Colossus: The Forbin Project, about a supercomputer that takes over the world. The book had two sequels where Phobos and Deimos were characters. In The Fall of Colossus, humans manage to shut down the Colossus computer, but when they do, they learn that the two moons of Mars are suddenly heading towards Earth, and are apparently alive. In the third book, Colossus and the Crab, humans discover that Phobos and Deimos are sentient machines, like Colossus, and they enslave humanity. Phobos In the 1977 novel Colossus and the Crab, Phobos and Deimos are depicted as intelligent machines that attack Earth. (credit: Berkley) Hard science fiction writer Alastair Reynolds set several of his novels on Phobos, such as his 2004 book Century Rain, which featured an underground base on Phobos with an alien portal to a distant galaxy. Ty Drago’s 2003 novel Phobos is set on that moon. In the late 1970s, noted science journalist Jonathan Eberhart began writing the “Interplanetary Excursions” column for Starlog magazine. The column was a concept so great that it deserves to be revived (and has been by at least one author). Eberhart wrote from the perspective of a space explorer visiting the wonders of the solar system. In “Stickball at Stickney,” Eberhart recounted a game of stickball on Phobos where a hit could send the ball in a weird trajectory around the tiny moon. Phobos In "The Expanse" TV series, Deimos is the site of a military facility and is destroyed by Earth forces in retaliation for an earlier attack. This concept art was produced by Lee Fitzgerald for the series. (credit: Lee Fitzgerald ) In the television series “The Expanse” (based upon a series of novels) Deimos is the site of a Mars defense facility that Earth’s military blows up in retaliation for an attack on an Earth outpost. This results in the “Deimos Ring” around Mars. Phobos The early 1990s video game Doom depicted gameplay on Phobos. (credit: id Software) Phobos has been the setting for several video games. It first appeared in the 1986 video game Leather Goddesses of Phobos and a 1992 sequel. Probably most famously, Phobos was the location of the popular 1990s video game Doom, as well as a forgettable movie by the same name, and several sequel games. The 2014 video game Destiny included gameplay on Phobos. A 2020 update to the video game Warframe also included a location set on Deimos. Human missions to Phobos In 1981, scientist Fred Singer proposed what he labeled the “PhD Mission,” a human mission to visit Phobos and Deimos. Singer’s reasoning was that it could be a precursor to a human mission to Mars, akin to the Apollo 8 circumlunar mission before the Apollo 11 landing. Phobos In the 1980s, Brian O'Leary published a book proposing a joint US-Soviet human mission to Phobos. (credit: Stackpole Books) After Singer’s proposal, there were numerous refinements on the concept. In 1987, former astronaut Brian O’Leary published Mars 1999, proposing a joint US-Soviet mission to Phobos (see “Forever Mars,” The Space Review, February 13, 2012.) Scientist Geoff Landis proposed an incremental approach to Mars exploration at the Case for Mars conference in 1993. In 2005, Pascal Lee along with several others proposed a Phobos mission, which they refined in 2007. In 2017, Francisco Arias proposed a novel method of landing on Mars using Phobos resources. Phobos Phobos Phobos Phobos In 2015, NASA's Johnson Space Center conducted a detailed study of human operations at Phobos and what that would require. The participants looked at various ways to explore the surface, including using a pressurized vehicle. (credit: NASA) The most extensive recent study of a human mission to Phobos was done in 2015 and focused on astronaut operations at Phobos. The study, led by former NASA astronaut Mike Gernhardt at Johnson Space Center, considered how astronauts would move around a low-gravity surface, and how long it would take them to do so. The moon’s very low gravity makes human exploration tricky. The team determined that a spacecraft that could touch down on Phobos and enable astronauts to collect samples using robotic arms would be useful. Astronauts could also perform EVAs while still tethered to the spacecraft and using maneuvering units. Phobos Phobos Around 2016, there were several proposals for human missions to Phobos, including a Planetary Society proposal, and a concept produced by Lockheed Martin as part of its Mars Base Camp study. (credit: The Planetary Society and Lockheed Martin) Around this same time, The Planetary Society proposed a concept for a human mission to Phobos. Lockheed Martin also published its “Mars Base Camp” concept that included a possible Demios visit as well. Phobos The book Exploring the Martian Moons discusses many proposals for exploring Phobos and Deimos. (credit: Springer) Manfred “Dutch” von Ehrenfried in 2017 published Exploring the Martian Moons: A Human Mission to Deimos and Phobos. The book discussed many of the previous Phobos exploration proposals. Phobos A 2025 proposal for a Phobos mission includes a small pressurized exploration craft for reaching the surface. (credit: Genesis) In 2025 at the AIAA’s ASCEND conference, a Boeing-led team proposed a nuclear-powered mission to Phobos. Whereas the 2015 JSC study included a spacecraft that would allow several astronauts to touch down on Phobos and collect samples, this newer proposal included a “Single-Person Spacecraft” to perform that task, illustrating it with a concept design that has been studied over decades. Phobos In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union launched two spacecraft to explore Phobos. One failed before reaching Mars, and the other failed soon after nearing Phobos. It produced this thermal image of Phobos' surface. (credit: Roscosmos) Russian missions to Phobos and Deimos The Soviet Union launched numerous robotic missions to Mars during the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, the country planned two ambitious missions to explore Phobos and Deimos. Phobos 1 and Phobos 2 were launched in July 1988 on Proton rockets from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, an erroneous command from the ground shut down Phobos 1 in September 1988, while it was en route to Mars. Had it succeeded, it would have been a major scientific advance, not to mention an international political accomplishment. Phobos 2 arrived at Mars in January 1989. It began transmitting data and imagery. But it suddenly stopped transmitting before it could begin its examination of the moon’s surface. The failure was due to either the onboard computer or the radio transmitter. The Mars 96 mission, which failed in 1996, never even reaching Earth orbit, was based upon the Phobos spacecraft. Phobos In 2011, Russia launched the ambitious Phobos-Grunt mission to return samples from Phobos, but the spacecraft never made it out of Earth orbit. (credit: Roscosmos) In November 2011, Russia launched the Phobos-Grunt mission to Mars from Baikonur atop a Proton rocket. “Grunt” means “soil” in Russian, and the mission was very ambitious. Not only would it rendezvous with Phobos and land on it, but it was planned to return a sample from the moon’s surface. Had it succeeded, it would have been a major scientific advance, not to mention an international political accomplishment. The spacecraft included the Chinese-built survey satellite Yinghuo-1, which would have orbited Mars. Unfortunately, the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft failed in Earth orbit, without firing its rockets to send it to Mars. It reentered Earth’s atmosphere in January 2012. (See “Open issues with the Phobos-Grunt accident report,” The Space Review, February 27, 2012; “Red planet blues,” The Space Review, November 28, 2011; and “Red moon around a Red Planet,” November 7, 2011.) Proposed robotic missions to Phobos and Deimos There have been several proposed Phobos and Deimos robotic missions over the past few decades that never received funding. For the American planetary science community, the moons may have fallen victim to the perception by Mars scientists that they are subjects for the asteroid science community, and the view of asteroid scientists that they are subjects for the Mars science community. In the late 1990s, NASA selected the Aladdin mission as a finalist in its Discovery program. The Aladdin spacecraft would visit both moons and launch projectiles at them, collecting ejecta as it performed a slow flyby. The spacecraft would then return the samples to Earth three years later. NASA instead selected the MESSENGER mission to Mercury. In 2007, the European company EADS Astrium studied a Phobos mission as a technology demonstrator. This was a potential precursor to a European Mars sample return mission known as Aurora. The mission would have launched in 2016 and lasted three years. It would have used a main spacecraft equipped with electric propulsion and deployed a Phobos lander. The lander would gather samples and rendezvous with the main spacecraft. Also in 2007, the Canadian Space Agency funded a study for a Phobos Reconnaissance International Mars Exploration (PRIME) mission. PRIME would have targeted a spot near Stickney Crater and would have consisted of an orbiter and lander, each carrying four instruments. A year later, NASA’s Glenn Research Center began studying a Phobos and Deimos sample return mission using solar electric propulsion. This became known as the Hall mission, after Asaph Hall, who discovered the moons. It was a New Frontiers-class mission, bigger than the earlier Aladdin Discovery-class proposal. But a Phobos mission is not included in NASA’s list of acceptable New Frontiers-class targets. Thus, there was no way to get such a mission approved unless the New Frontiers target list was changed at that time. The MMX mission reflects Japan’s experience with two successful asteroid sample return missions, Hayabusa and Hayabusa2. JAXA has demonstrated that it can perform this type of sample return mission. After the OSIRIS-REx mission was selected in 2011 to recover samples from an asteroid, some researchers proposed an OSRIS-REx II mission that could perform the same mission at Phobos. The hardware was developed and worked successfully at asteroid Bennu. However, because OSIRIS-REx was also a New Frontiers-class mission, any successor would likely cost just as much, which is too expensive for an American Phobos mission. In 2013, a Phobos Surveyor mission was proposed by Stanford University, JPL, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was not accepted by NASA. Phobos Phobos In the United States there have been many proposals for robotic missions to Phobos and Deimos, including the PANDORA and PADME missions, but none have been pursued. In 2014, the Phobos And Deimos & Mars Environment (PADME) mission was proposed as a Discovery-class mission. Merlin and Pandora were two other Discovery-class mission proposals at the same time. Merlin would fly past Deimos and orbit and land on Phobos, and Pandora would orbit both moons. None of the missions was selected for the Discovery program. Phobos The Japanese MMX mission is scheduled to launch later this year. It will study both moons and bring back samples from Phobos. This will hopefully finally answer the mystery of whether the moons are captured asteroids or parts of Mars. (credit: JAXA) The MMX mission The most exciting news about Phobos exploration comes from Japan. In 2015, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced plans for a sample return mission to Phobos named the Martian Moons eXploration, or MMX. The MMX spacecraft will set down on Phobos multiple times, collecting samples. It will be equipped with a corer sampling mechanism with the goal of retrieving a minimum of ten grams of samples. NASA and the German and French space agencies are also participating in the mission. They are providing instruments and a rover named Idefix. The original plan was to launch MMX in late 2024, but the H3 rocket it will use suffered a failure during its debut launch in March 2023. The investigation and recovery time pushed the MMX launch to the next launch window, in fall 2026. In December 2025, JAXA again experienced a problem with its H3 rocket. But fortunately, in late March, JAXA shipped the MMX spacecraft to the launch site. The launch window runs from October to November. The MMX mission reflects Japan’s experience with two successful asteroid sample return missions, Hayabusa and Hayabusa2. JAXA has demonstrated that it can perform this type of sample return mission. MMX will be more complicated and extensive than the previous asteroid missions, which barely touched the surface. MMX includes the rover but also plans to collect samples from beneath the surface at multiple locations. The samples are scheduled to return to Earth in 2031, and if all goes to plan, we should finally have a definitive answer as to where these moons came from, but also undoubtedly new mysteries to solve.   Further reading: “Human Exploration of Phobos” “Human Exploration Of Phobos And Deimos: Robotic Precursor Measurements” “Human Missions to Phobos and Deimos Using Combined Chemical and Solar Electric Propulsion” “Impact of Utilizing Phobos and Deimos as Waypoints for Mars Human Surface Missions” Mars Wars/a> “Strategic Implications of Phobos as a Staging Point for Mars Surface Missions” “Science exploration opportunities for manned missions to the Moon, Mars, Phobos, and an asteroid” Landis, Geoffrey A.; "Footsteps to Mars: an Incremental Approach to Mars Exploration", in Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, vol. 48, pp. 367–342 (1995); presented at Case for Mars V, Boulder CO, 26–29 May 1993; appears in From Imagination to Reality: Mars Exploration Studies, R. Zubrin, ed., AAS Science and Technology Series Volume 91, pp. 339–350 (1997). (text available as Footsteps to Mars) Lee, Pascal; Braham, Stephen; Mungas, Greg; Silver, Matt; Thomas, Peter C.; and West, Michael D. (2005), "Phobos: A Critical Link Between Moon and Mars Exploration", Report of the Space Resources Roundtable VII: LEAG Conference on Lunar Exploration, League City, TX 25–28 Oct 2005. LPI Contrib. 1318, p. 72. Bibcode:2005LPICo1287...56L Oberg, Jamie (20 May 2009). "Russia's Dark Horse Plan to Get to Mars". Discover. Archived from the original on 12 August 2022. Retrieved 19 July 2021. The total delta-v required for a mission to land on Phobos and come back is low—only about 80 percent that of a round-trip to the surface of Earth's moon. (That is in part because of Phobos's feeble gravity; a well-aimed pitch could launch a softball off its surface.) Arias, Francisco J. (2017). On the Use of the Sands of Phobos and Deimos as a Braking Technique for Landing Large Payloads on Mars. 53rd AIAA/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference. Atlanta, GA. doi:10.2514/6.2017-4876. ISBN 978-1-62410-511-1. AIAA 201–4876. Arias, Francisco J.; De Las Heras, Salvador A. (2019). "Sandbraking. A technique for landing large payloads on Mars using the sands of Phobos". Aerospace Science and Technology. 85: 409–415. Bibcode:2019AeST...85..409A. doi:10.1016/j.ast.2018.11.041. hdl:2117/127428. ISSN 1270-9638. S2CID 115285339. Lee, Pascal (5–7 November 2007). Phobos-Deimos ASAP: A Case for the Human Exploration of the Moons of Mars (PDF). First Int'l Conf. Explor. Phobos & Deimos. LPI Contrib. 1377. NASA Research Park, Moffett Field, CA: USRA. p. 25 [#7044]. Retrieved 19 July 2021. Phobos is Dwayne Day’s second favorite moon. He is interested in hearing from anybody who was involved in earlier Phobos mission proposals, including the various Discovery and New Frontiers-class proposals. He can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.

Super Soyuzby

Zarya General layout of the 7K-SM spacecraft. (Image: Vadim Lukashevich/buran.ru, processing by the author) Zarya: the three lives of the propulsively landed Super-Soyuz by Maks Skiendzielewski Tuesday, May 26, 2026 An earlier version of this article erroneously treated what is actually the 7K-SM as simply the initial version of Zarya, but the projects were distinctly different spacecraft, despite the many similarities. With newly published project documentation, both spacecraft can be described in more detail than before. As it happened, NPO Energia had already been working on the 7K-SM, a similar project for an advanced crew ferry based on Soyuz technology. In the late 1980s, with the development of the first modules of Mir nearing its end and their launches on the horizon, NPO Energia started work on the station’s successor; another generational step after Salyut-6, which introduced multiple docking ports allowing continuous crewed operation and resupply missions; and Mir, which became the first truly modular station, drastically expanding the available volume and bringing specialized modules to the mix. Initially, Mir-2 was just the backup to the Mir base block that would have replaced its original in orbit or have been used to build another Mir-type complex, but by the early ’80s, the focus had shifted to a massive orbital complex utilizing a large truss as its backbone — likely conceived with the American Space Station Freedom in the back of the designers’ minds. By 1991, that concept was abandoned in favor of the more modest “Mir-1.5” plans and later a cozy DOS-8-based station with a compact truss, photovoltaic cells, and solar concentrators, but it’s that mid-to-late-80s period where a need arose to match the next-generation station with a next-generation crew ferry. [1] As it happened, NPO Energia had already been working on the 7K-SM, a similar project for an advanced crew ferry based on Soyuz technology, so when a resolution of the Military Industrial Commission in January 1985 directed the ex-Korolev bureau to develop a crewed vehicle worthy of its lofty Mir-2 plans, the technically ambitious 7K-SM was abandoned and a new spacecraft was conceived based on the same basic concept. And that spacecraft was the Zarya. Back to the beginning: 7K-SM Zarya’s esoteric predecessor, the 7K-SM, was based on hardware developed for the 7K-ST — also known as Soyuz-T — and officially began development in 1982, although within Energia the idea can be traced back as early as 1970, when Chief Designer Vasily Mishin directed a trio of specialists at the bureau to start researching reusable spacecraft based on the Soyuz descent module. [2] Zarya Energia poster with the general characteristics of the 7K-SM. (Image: Vadim Lukashevich/buran.ru, full-resolution version available on buranarchive.space) Officially a member of the Soyuz 7K-S-series, the 7K-SM was assigned the 7K-S serial number range starting at №71. It was intended to be a multipurpose reusable spacecraft, capable of ferry flights to Salyut and Mir-class space stations, supporting crewed in-space construction missions and serving as a rescue vessel. Each capsule would have a certified service life of 100 missions of up to 180 days’ duration with turnaround times between flights as short as 350 hours and a targeted three-to-fivefold reduction in launch cost over the Soyuz. Flight testing was due to begin in 1986. Under the hood Instead of the separate orbital, descent, and service modules of the Soyuz, the new capsule would launch and land as one piece. Its shape was a scaled-up version of the Soyuz descent module, 3.5 meters in diameter, with a lift/drag coefficient of 0.26 at speeds over Mach 6. Within this volume, a shallower pressurized crew compartment was placed with a cylindrical cargo section below. Orbital maneuvering would be taken care of by a pair of 300-kgf maneuvering engines running on kerosene (RG-1) and hydrogen peroxide (0–30VK). [3] The capsule would land propulsively on eight 6,500-kgf engines placed at the bottom of the capsule in the ring-shaped service compartment, and rest on four landing legs that extended through openings in the heat shield, though at least initially a conventional parachute version was also studied. With the landing engines on double duty as the launch escape system, the concept is similar to the early plans for a crewed capsule developed by the California startup Space Exploration Technologies in the early 2000s, and later the perennially five-years-away Oryol spacecraft pursued by Roscosmos. Up to eight crew in Sokol-KV suits were seated in horizontally mounted Kazbek-U couches, identical to the ones in use on the Soyuz-T. In fact, most of the onboard hardware was carried over from the Soyuz-T, like the communication, life-support, and sanitation systems, or borrowed from the in-development Soyuz-TM, like the Kurs docking system. The electrical system, onboard computer, and thermal control system were upgraded versions of the Soyuz-T units and most of the hardware used for landing was newly developed, like the landing engines and legs and the radio altimeter. Protecting the spacecraft from the heat of reentry was a suite of thermal protection tiles, each approximately 300 by 300 millimeters in size, rated for 100 flight cycles without refurbishment. Just like the Soyuz descent module it was derived from, 7K-SM was rotationally symmetrical in shape, but had an offset center of gravity, which stabilized the capsule during reentry and allowed it to perform crossrange maneuvers. With that offset, the heat load during reentry was biased toward one side of the capsule, requiring heat shield tiles of two distinct specifications. Instead of the separate orbital, descent, and service modules of the Soyuz, the new capsule would launch and land as one piece. On the cooler leeward side of the capsule’s backshell, the tiles were 40 millimeters thick and were machined from a crystalline silica (quartz) fiber KSSK-0 foam and topped with a BK-series high-emissivity coating, which served a similar function to the reaction-cured glass on Shuttle and Buran tiles, improving the radiation of excess heat away from the tiles while protecting the delicate foam from surface damage. Tiles on the hotter windward side and the bottom of the capsule—also called the Frontal Heat Shield (LTE)—were 50 millimeters thick and had a two-layer core made of KSSK-0 and a TINK-series quartz foam. These high-temperature tiles were coated with a reinforced carbon-carbon material from the KUP line. Until 1978, the KUP-VM variant was considered for the nose cap and wing leading edges of the Buran orbiter, but it was ultimately abandoned in favor the new GRAVIMOL material due to difficulties in manufacturing the nose cap in a single piece. [4] As the Frontal Heat Shield would transfer significant loads to the spacecraft’s structure, tiles mounted to it were supported by additional brackets and standoffs made from KUP and AFT-2P reinforced carbon-carbon materials. In both tile types, the KSSK layer was milled out and filled with either a low-density silica foam or Ritm-branded asbestos foam to save weight. The tiles were attached with adhesive to ARIMID S-30-based felt isolation pads, which were in turn adhered to the spacecraft’s skin panels. The skin panels were isolated from the capsule’s pressure vessel by a grid of special ribs. Zarya Thermal protection system tile layout of the 7K-SM spacecraft. Image: Novosti Kosmonavtiki, 2014 №8 As a consequence of the capsule’s all-in-one design, numerous apertures in the heat shield were required for engine nozzles, landing legs, hatches, portholes, and navigation instruments; they were lined or edged with KUP-VM reinforced carbon-carbon inserts to protect the structure from the intrusion of hot gas during reentry. In-orbit thermal management was handled by a 10-square-meter titanium-clad radiator on an aluminum substrate, mounted flush with the heat shield on the leeward side. Operations and destinations The 7K-SM could launch on both the Soyuz-U and Zenit (11K77), though in different configurations due to the payload mass limits of the Soyuz. In Zenit trim, the capsule could seat between two and eight crew in Sokol KV pressure suits in a fully reclined position. On crewed missions to a 51.6° inclination orbit, the spacecraft could carry 2,700 kilograms of cargo, increasing to 3,000 kilograms when uncrewed, with a return payload of 1,200 kilograms for both. At its heaviest, the Zenit-launched 7K-SM would mass 12,000 kilograms. On Soyuz-U flights, the 7K-SM could only carry between two and three crew, with just 100 kilograms of cargo to a 51.6° inclination orbit when crewed and 400 kilograms uncrewed, and a return payload of 500 kilograms. Consequently, the Soyuz-launched version massed 7,300 kilograms at its heaviest, right at the limit of what the Soyuz-U could lift to orbit. Interestingly, both propulsive landing and conventional parachute recovery were considered for the capsule at some stage of development. The landing systems for both options massed 1,280 kilograms, but the parachute version required an additional 560 kilograms for a launch abort tower, which the propulsively landed design did not need. Zarya Zarya The 7K-SM and Zenit in the parachute recovery variant with the launch abort tower in the Manned Spacecraft Servicing Unit. Images: Vladimir Antipov and HausD Before military tensions eased significantly in the ’90s, NPO Energia had been working on a number of spaceborne weapons, some of them crewed or crew-tended. One such weapon was a modular space station for attacking “high value ground targets”. A DOS-7K-series module would be its core — just like on Mir — but instead of FGB-based science modules, the station would use “autonomous modules” based on the Buran airframe. Wingless orbiters with docking ports in the nose would separate from the station, maneuver to their strike positions and deploy ballistic weapons or BOR-based dive bombers. The 7K-SM spacecraft (and later Zarya when the 7K-SM was cancelled) would be used to crew the station. [5] Zarya Zarya Top: “Space station for hitting ground targets 1. Transport ship 7K-SM 2. Command module 3. Base station unit 4. Target station module 5. Combat module”. Bottom: Mir-type combat station with the Zarya spacecraft and Buran-derived combat modules; Skif and Kaskad stations.Images: Semyonov (ed.), 1996; Tekhnika Molodyozhy №4, 1998 (processing by the author). An illustration of the station first appeared in the 1996 company history of RKK Energia; later color illustrations, mostly found in late ’90s issues of magazines such as Tekhnika Molodyozhy (Technology for the Youth), were usually based on the 1996 illustration whose caption explicitly mentioned the 7K-SM, but the capsule started gaining features of the later 14F70 design and being captioned as Zarya. At least one source mentions that the 7K-SM would also be used to ferry crew to the DOS-based Kaskad and Skif combat stations, carrying crews of two for up to seven days. [6] By 1985, the 7K-SM project was abandoned in favor of an evolved, slightly larger design. Reconfiguration: 14F70 “Zarya” Development of the new 14F70 spacecraft, given the “Zarya” project name, was approved by a January 27, 1985, resolution of the Military Industrial Commission. Department 178 of NPO Energia, headed by I.L. Minyuk was tasked with the work, with Konstantin Feoktistov as the project lead. NPO Energia’s General Designer Valentin Glushko personally supervised the project. [7] The increase in performance and size over the Soyuz allowed the designers to draw up a larger 4.1-meter diameter descent module, but this time around the crew size was limited to four, all sitting in ejection seats. By December 22, 1986, preliminary drawings were created, followed by the release of the preliminary design in the first quarter of 1987, and adjustments to the design in May 1988. Test flights were due to begin in 1991–92 according to early plans. Under the hood The redesigned spacecraft was to take full advantage of the then-new Zenit; a standalone two-stage version of the mighty Energia’s Blok A strap-on booster. The increase in performance and size over the Soyuz allowed the designers to draw up a larger 4.1-meter diameter descent module, but this time around the crew size was limited to four, all sitting in ejection seats. The orbital maneuvering system was relocated to an expendable Service Module (NO) which separated from the Crew Module (VK) before reentry. The total length of the spacecraft was around five meters with a launch mass approaching 15 tonnes and a hypersonic lift/drag coefficient of 0.25. Zarya Zarya Top: “Reusable manned spacecraft Zarya: 1. Reentry capsule 2. Cargo 3. Landing engine 4. Work compartment 5. Pressure vessel 6. Porthole 7. Star sensor 8. Ejection seat 9. Control panel 10. Antenna of the rendezvous equipment 11. Engine compartment 12. On-board equipment 13. Docking and orientation engines 14. Heat shield shock absorber 15. Doppler velocimeter 16. Refueling and propulsion system 17. Expendable compartment 18. SEP and EKhG 19. Wall-mounted radiator”. Bottom: landing of the Zarya spacecraft. Semyonov (ed.), 1996, processing by the author. The capsule was designed to ferry between two and four crew with cargo, with a certified on-orbit life of at least 195 days (later increased to 270 days). It could also be configured for uncrewed cargo missions, including the return of payloads from orbit, rescue missions to space stations and Buran orbiters, and specialized Ministry of Defense and Academy of Science missions. At a later stage, the spacecraft was to be developed further into a versatile multi-mission vehicle for up to eight crew without ejection seats and capable of operating uncrewed in orbits as high as geostationary and inclinations up to 97° when aided by a tug. Zarya November 1987 blueprint of the Zarya capsule signed by Konstantin Feoktistov. Image: Vadim Lukashevich/buran.ru Inside the spacecraft, the pressurized volume was divided into the wider crew compartment at the top and a narrower cylindrical cargo compartment beneath its “floor”. Three of the four Zvezda K-36L ejection seats were mounted in a fan pattern, with the commander in the rightmost seat and the flight engineer in the leftmost seat; the first “cosmonaut-scientist” sat between them. The fourth crew member—the second “cosmonaut-scientist”—sat completely sideways at the trio’s feet. A pyrotechnically separated ejection hatch was mounted above every seat; the commander’s and engineer’s seat hatches featured inset portholes pointing forwards and the middle seat hatch contained the drogue parachute behind a retractable panel. Opposite the fourth, blank hatch, a blister with the retractable Kurs docking antenna was mounted. Smaller sensors like the star tracker were located inside the thermal protection “ring” around the capsule’s docking port, which could be either the traditional SSVP “probe-and-drogue” docking assembly, or the APAS-89 system developed for the Buran program — presumably with a small payload penalty, as the APAS system was 120 kilograms heavier . The docking assembly was protected during launch by a jettisonable cover. The equipment onboard was a mix of Soyuz-TM hardware and newly developed units, with the control systems taking full advantage of 1980s computer technology. The Energomash-built landing engines of the Integrated Propulsion System (initially also used as the launch abort system before a Soyuz-style escape tower was chosen) were arranged in a circle in the ring-shaped Instrument Compartment around the cargo section, each engine rated for 1.5 tonnes of thrust on a mix of hydrogen peroxide and kerosene. To improve engine-out capability, the number of landing engines grew from 8 to 24 and they were moved outwards laterally and upwards until they were almost level with the center of gravity, increasing the corrective moment the engines can exert on the capsule during the landing burn. This would also help counteract the effects of the center of gravity being shifted to one side in both designs to improve reentry stability and allow crossrange maneuvers. Together with 16 62-kgf monopropellant orientation thrusters, the engines would be used to land the spacecraft in the Kazakh steppe with an accuracy of 2.5 kilometers. Before the ignition of the landing engines, a drogue chute would be deployed to stabilize the capsule and bleed off speed. [8] The landing engines and fuel were located inside the descent module, so a non-toxic propellant mix was chosen for crew safety. Nevertheless, as one can imagine, the acoustic load level on the crew during landing was described as “high”. The acceleration limit was also set rather high at 10G   when compared to the modern Soyuz’s 6G of (although the contemporary TM-series still subjected its passengers to a hefty 12G.) [9] Orbital maneuvering duties were taken care of by a set of two 300-kgf maneuvering engines and a number of smaller docking and orientation thrusters, located in the expendable Service Module and fueled with a more conventional mix of nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4) and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH). Radiators were also relegated to the Service Module, mounted flush with the compartment around its perimeter. One of the first appearances of the new Zarya spacecraft in space station plans that have been made public since was as part of a Mir-2 variant proposed in mid-1985. To ensure a service life of 30 to 50 missions for each capsule, Zarya was covered in silica heat protection tiles similar to the ones on 7K-SM, but only on the sides of the capsule—the backshell. Instead of a fully reusable suite of tiles, Zarya would trade some reusability for simplicity and lower cost, replacing the landing legs and the tiled Frontal Heat Shield with a single-use heat shield panel with a honeycomb core that protected the capsule from the brutal heat of reentry and was designed to crumple on touchdown to absorb the force of landing. Zarya Zarya Thermal protection system tile layout of the Zarya spacecraft in two specifications, likely to be the baseline variant with ejection seats on the left and the evolved version with no ejection seats and a higher crew capacity on the right. Legend: I. heatshield-clad honeycomb crumple panel, II. tile mounting on the windward side, III. tile mounting on the leeward side. Images: Novosti Kosmonavtiki, 2014 №8, Tvoy Sektor Kosmosa on YouTube (lecture). The panel, bolted directly to the pressure vessel, was a 21-centimeter-thick sandwich of aluminum honeycomb, a layer of KSSK-150 quartz fiber foam and a top layer of PKT-11K-FL ablator—a laminate of silica cloth in a phenolic resin matrix, also used in the heat shield of the Soyuz descent module. Small apertures in the panel ensured line-of-sight with the ground for the radio altimeter, which was mounted centrally at the bottom of the cargo compartment. [10] Each tile on the backshell was glued to a felt isolation pad and the combination was glued to the spacecraft skin panels, which were once again isolated from the pressure vessel by a series of ribs. Two tile specifications were used, both 40 killimeters thick, with KSSK-based tiles on the leeward side and tiles with a two-layer KSSK and TINK core on the hotter windward side. Both tile types were topped with high emissivity coatings. Operations and destinations In the 15-tonne configuration, the Zenit would deliver Zarya to a 190-kilometer 51.6° reference orbit. With two crew, the cargo capacity was 2.5 tonnes with 1.5–2 tonnes of return cargo; with no crew, 3 tonnes with 2–2.5 tonnes of return cargo. The interior of a Zarya capsule would be easily reconfigurable between any of the four major mission types without affecting the general layout and flight systems: space station ferry with 2–4 crew and cargo launch and return rescue vessel launched empty or with 1–2 crew, returning 2–4 crew in the initial version and up to 8 crew in the later advanced variant in-space assembly or repair spacecraft with 2–3 crew uncrewed spacecraft for cargo launch-return missions to orbits as high as 36 000 kilometers altitude with a special tug. Interestingly, the standard Zenit did not have quite the performance necessary to lift the heavy capsule, so instead of kerosene, the second stage tanks were to be filled with syntin, a synthetic hydrocarbon with a higher energy density than RG-1, to increase the impulse. A separate proposal was to activate the launch abort system tower before Zarya separated from the second stage and only jettison it after it gave the stack the extra push (or rather pull). Zarya Various reusable crewed spaceflight projects, including Zarya on Zenit in the leftmost column and an air-launched variant in the rightmost column. Image: Tvoy Sektor Kosmosa on YouTube (lecture). Being the prospective replacement of the Soyuz, Zarya played an important role in the Mir-2 plans of the late ’80s. The long on-orbit life resource and larger crew capacity meant that the capsule was a very convenient crew ferry and lifeboat for the large next-generation orbital complex. While relatively few illustrations of either Mir-2 or Zarya have been made public, the even scarcer ones with them both show a version of the future, where instead of Shuttle-Mir-Soyuz we have Buran-Mir-2-Zarya. One of the first appearances of the new Zarya spacecraft in space station plans that have been made public since was as part of a Mir-2 variant proposed in mid-1985, where the core module was based on Energia core stage tankage. The station would be serviced by Buran orbiters and the Zarya ferry. Zarya 1985 Mir-2 variant serviced by Zarya capsules. Image: buran.ru In the 180GK design proposed in 1986 and approved a year later—perhaps the second-best known Mir-2 configuration as it clearly resembled the “dual-keel” Space Station Freedom—the Zarya capsule was once again employed as the crew ferry, with Buran orbiters tagging along as resupply vehicles. [11] Preliminary estimates showed a requirement for two flights of Zarya to supply the 180GK station every year, along with three Progress M2’s and one to two Buran orbiters. In the 1987 draft design of Mir-2, a modified Soyuz-TM launched on Zenit or a standard Soyuz-TM launched on Soyuz-U2 were described as possible alternatives for Zarya, but Zarya remained the baseline crew vehicle until the project’s cancellation. [12] As of 1987, Mir-2 was to begin construction in 1993 and reach completion in 1997. At that point, over the next three years the “standard” Mir-2 was to be expanded into the massive Orbital Assembly and Operations Center (OSEC), a direct response to Space Station Freedom, in development at Energia since 1984. While we do not have illustrations of Zarya at Mir-2, we do have two posters of the capsule docked to proposed OSEC configurations. Zarya Zarya Zarya as part of two variants of the “Orbital Assembly and Operations Center” complex built around Mir-2, reminiscent of the Space Station Freedom “Power Tower” configuration. Images: Anton Kachinskiy and buran.ru Program closure In January 1989 work on the project stopped with a rift between the project’s main cheerleader within Energia, Konstantin Feoktistov, and the newly appointed chief designer of the bureau, Yuri Semyonov, in the background. By that time, the costs associated with the Buran program had started to come down after the 1985 peak, but 1.3 of the 6.9-billion-ruble space budget for 1989 was still allocated for the shuttle project, and the Zarya project did not receive the funding it needed. Similarly, the heavy workload associated with the Buran program within NPO Energia put the reusable capsule on the backburner. [13] By then, “main design documentation was completed” at NPO Energia according to the company history book. Later that year, on October 5, the Scientific and Technical Council of the Ministry of General Machine Building and the USSR Academy of Sciences on the topic of Mir-2 officially “recognized the need to stop work” on Zarya. [14] Throughout the 7K-SM and Zarya projects, there was some skepticism among NPO Energia employees about whether the propulsive landing systems can be made as safe and reliable as the tried and tested parachute landing. While the basic design of 7K-SM was to a large degree landing system-agnostic, the propulsively landed version offered no backup option in case of a landing engine malfunction. On Zarya, crew capacity was traded for the ability to rescue all crew during a landing mishap with ejection seats. Mind you, the ejection seats could be used only during the landing burn: the hatch above one of the crew member’s seats doubled as a container for the drogue chute and in the final version of the design, Zarya was encapsulated in a Soyuz-style fairing with an abort tower. That’s four ejection seats, an abort tower, 24 landing engines and a parachute (albeit small), all eating into the Zenit’s precious payload capacity. Still, the design fell short of the later requirement for single fault tolerance for mission completion and double fault tolerance for the safe return on Zarya. Anecdotally, the increased number of engines was met with skepticism too, but due to fears that the high engine count would hamper reliability; an echo of the N-1 program’s four failed launches, all of which were catastrophic failures of the 30-engine first stage. According to one source, designs for the Zarya were among the items sold to China in the early ’90s when Sino-Russian relations warmed and Chinese officials visited a number of space enterprises in the former USSR. Feoktistov left Energia a year after Zarya was cancelled and would later call the project his mistake, saying that he should have pushed for a flatter shape of the capsule with a higher lift-to-drag coefficient to improve landing accuracy from the 2.5-kilometer value specified in the last iteration of the design, which forced a landing on the unprepared surface of the Kazakh steppe. Work on the landing system for the Energia rocket’s Blok A boosters showed that at those scales the landing engines caused significant cratering in the ground, risking the capsule tipping over after landing and damaging its delicate silica tiles. Feoktistov himself is reported to have proposed the construction of a concrete landing pad, though for that to happen either the landing accuracy would need to be improved or the landing pad would have an area more than 50 times larger than the already huge Buran landing facility. [15] In documents available to the author, no contractor is specified for the landing engines of the 7K-SM, though Energia did have some experience with kerosene-oxygen engines of similar size developed in-house, e.g. the S1.5400 engine for the upper stage of the Molniya launcher. In 1986, NPO Energomash conducted studies on kerosene-peroxide landing engines and orientation thrusters for Zarya, but it is unclear how far that project got. When the company unveiled the self-funded RD-161 engine in 1993, followed two years later by the kerosene-peroxide RD-161P—both rated for 20 tonnes of thrust—it was noted that Energomash had “not been engaged in the development of a liquid propellant [engine] of this size for more than 30 years.” [16] While the project never reached the production of flight hardware, some things were built and can still be seen today, namely the “Manned Spacecraft Servicing Unit”, also known as the “birdhouse”, for the Zenit at Baikonur’s Site 45, built to service the Zarya-Zenit stack. According to one source, designs for the Zarya were among the items sold to China in the early ’90s when Sino-Russian relations warmed and Chinese officials visited a number of space enterprises in the former USSR. [17] Zarya The “Manned Spacecraft Servicing Unit” at the Zenit launch site in Baikonur. Image: I. Marinin. Resurrection: Assured Crew Return Vehicle The collapse of the Soviet Union coincided with dramatic delays in and eventual cancellation of the initial GK-180 variant of Mir-2 in mid-1991. The only way for the project to continue was to reconfigure the massive station into a smaller, Mir-1-sized affair or even only use the existing DOS-8 module to replace Mir’s core in orbit and extend the station’s lifespan. Meanwhile, Space Station Freedom and its budget had also been shrinking by the minute, with the station losing one of its iconic four solar array pairs in 1991. Throughout the project, there was a clear need for the development or procurement of a rescue vessel for the station :  the Space Shuttle could only dock for two weeks and any crew that stayed on a long-duration mission would be stranded if anything went seriously wrong. By 1992, multiple rescue vessel concepts had been investigated under the Assured Crew Return Vehicle (ACRV) project name; the program was just entering the “system definition” phase. The concepts were mostly home-grown designs — ranging from scaled-up Apollo command modules to lifting bodies — but some more exotic vehicles like the British “Multi-Role Recovery Capsule” also appeared in submissions to NASA tenders. At the time, the space station was due to start assembly in 1995 but only reach permanently manned capability in 1999 when the ACRV arrived at the station. In October 1991, the head of NPO Energia Yuri Semyonov offered his company’s vehicles as the lifeboat for Freedom until the “proper” ACRV came online and repeated the offer on February 21, 1992, while appearing at a US Senate subcommittee hearing. At least three options were presented: the Soyuz-TM fitted with an APAS port, a clean sheet design resembling the Apollo CM (based on either the VA capsule or Energia’s 1987 Mars crewed spacecraft proposal), and a modified version of the cancelled Zarya spacecraft. The latter would be able to seat up to six or seven (depending on the source) astronauts and fly on Zenit or in the shuttle’s payload bay. [18] Zarya One of the three ACRV options proposed to NASA by NPO Energia. Image: Johnson, Rodvold, 1991. Technical details are extremely scarce, but it appears to have included a modified orbital module of the Soyuz and feature a separate service module; both would be jettisoned before reentry. Based on the available illustrations, this version was not, however, 4.1 meters in diameter, but a more compact 3.7 meters, with a mass of 10–12 tonnes. [19] In March 1992, officials from both countries discussed cooperation in crewed spaceflight and a NASA delegation visited Moscow to “hold exploratory talks on the concept of using Soyuz as an ACRV” and the Soyuz-TM option was developed further. The 1993 agreement to form the International Space Station from the Freedom program and what remained of Mir-2 led to the ACRV program being put on hold until 1997. In 1995, anticipating a tender from NASA, NPO Energia (which had by that time become RKK Energiya) resumed development of an ACRV, focusing on a Zarya-derived concept launched on the Space Shuttle. Rockwell International joined in on the project, followed by Khrunichev by the end of the year. [20] Zarya Russian ISS lifeboat based on the Zarya spacecraft. Semyonov (ed.), 1996 The new lifeboat had a launch mass of 12.5 tonnes, sat eight crew and was made up of three sections: the eight-tonne descent module, 3.7 meters in diameter; a short forward compartment with an APAS docking port; and the aft section, itself composed of the latticework transition compartment with its payload bay attachment structure and the service compartment, which housed the instruments, batteries, fuel tanks, control thrusters, and the main engine. The forward compartment could be used as an airlock in free flight if needed. The total length of the vehicle was 7.2 meters with the same 3.7-meter capsule diameter as the version offered in 1992; it would stay docked to the ISS for up to five years. Work on the vehicle stopped after NASA switched to modified Soyuz-TM as a lifeboat for the first years of the ISS in June 1996. The ACRV program refocused on what would become the X-38, which was itself cancelled in 2001. The Soyuz ended up serving as the Station’s lifeboat until 2021, when it started sharing that duty with Crew Dragon. Knowledge gained during the abortive 7K-SM and Zarya projects made several cameos in the 2000s as the ambition and funding levels for the now-Russian space program began climbing back up after the mid-90s slump. Over the course of several projects for “next-generation” crew spacecraft, enlarged Soyuz descent modules were proposed for the lunar ACTS spacecraft and its successor project, which is currently known as Oryol. Epilogue Up to 1996, NPO Energia seriously proposed or worked on spacecraft based on an enlarged Soyuz descent module with at least three different diameters: 3.5, 3.7, and 4.1 meters. It is unknown if any hardware was actually built in the process, despite murmurs on Russian spaceflight forums some two decades ago about “some elements” existing in the metal. As with any military-adjacent project—both the 7K-SM and Zarya were included in combat space station plans—the access to Soviet-era documentation is still complicated, although some information is slowly making its way into public view. At least one source mentions that Zenit makers KB Yuzhnoe started work with NPO Energia to accommodate what became the Zarya as early as 1979. Together with a handful of other sources, it also uses the designation “7K-M” for the Zarya, but I haven’t been able to find a firm confirmation of that designation. [21] Work on the reusable capsules was first made public in Igor Afanasyev’s 1991 book Neizvestnye korabli with a short chapter on Zarya. The company history of NPO Energia (under its new RKK Energiya name) published in 1996 contained a full two A4 pages on Zarya with two pretty illustrations and a separate section on the 1995 ISS rescue vessel. The earlier 7K-SM is mentioned exactly once, in the legend of a matchbox-sized illustration of the DOS and Buran-based combat station. At this scale, the capsule’s black thermal protection tiles morphed into a pitch-black silhouette of the spacecraft with no discernible details. In the late 2000s, posters showcasing the thermal protection system of the 7K-SM and Zarya surfaced on Russian forums (later reproduced in a 2014 issue of Novosti Kosmonavtiki) alongside drawings of the 7K-SM abort tower and fairing in the Zenit “birdhouse”. At least two more posters featuring Zarya appeared in the background of a 2015 series of recorded lectures by Energia veteran Viktor Minenko, the lead designer for the Soyuz descent module and a major participant in the Zarya project. This spring, previously unreleased documentation on the 7K-SM and Zarya was shared by Vadim Lukashevich in response to the previous version of this article. Bibliography Bart Hendrickx, “From Mir-2 to the ISS Russian Segment”, London, British Interplanetary Society, 2002. Conversations with Dmitry Vorontsov and Vadim Lukashevich; V.P. Mishin, “Diaries in 3 volumes/Voronezh”, Quarta Publishers, 2014, Vol. 2, p. 300 The 7K-SM section is based on documentation graciously provided by Vadim Lukashevich, available at buranarchive.space G.M. Gunyaev, M.Y. Gofin, “Carbon-Carbon Composite Materials”, Aviatsionnye Materialy i Tekhnologii, Special Issue 2013, p. 64 Yuri Semyonov (ed.), “Raketno-kosmicheskaya korporatsiya Energiya 1946–1996”, Moscow, 1996, pp. 420 V.Yu. Karfidov, “Cosmonautics: A Brief Guide in 6 volumes. Volume 1. Cosmonautics of the USSR/Russia”, Onebook.ru, 2022, pp. 145, 327 The Zarya section is based on Semyonov, pp. 423–424; Igor Afanasyev, Dmitry Vorontsov, “Nesostoyavshayasya «Zarya»“, Novosti Kosmonavtiki, 2014 №8; and documentation provided by Vadim Lukashevich, available at buranarchive.space Igor Afanasyev, “Chistaya perekis”, Novosti Kosmonavtiki, 2004 №12, p. 54 “The Russian Soyuz spacecraft“, ESA, accessed 09.08.2025 B.A. Davis, “ISS Soyuz Vehicle Descent Module Evaluation of Thermal Protection System (TPS) Penetration Characteristics”, pp. 2-3 K. Lantranov, “Zvezda: put’ v kosmos”, Novosti Kosmonavtiki, 2000 №9, pp. 4-5 Yuri Baturin, “Mirovaya pilotiruyemaya kosmonavtika: Istoriya. Tekhnika. Lyudi”, RTSoft Publishing House, Moscow, 2005, pp. 534–535 V.S. Syromyatnikov, “100 Stories About Dockings and Other Adventures in Space and on Earth: Vol. 2”, M. University Book, Logos, 2010, pp. 206–208; Igor Afanasyev, “Neizvestnye korabli”, Znanie, Moscow, 1991; B. Hendrickx and B. Vis, “Energiya-Buran: The Soviet Space Shuttle”, New York, NY, USA, Springer/Praxis, 2007, p. 373 V. Mokhov, “Modul dlya «Burana»“, Novosti Kosmonavtiki, 1998 №23–24 Afanasyev, Vorontsov, 2014, op. cit., p. 57 Afanasyev, 2004, op. cit. Rex D. Hall, David J. Shayler and Bert Vis, “Russia’s cosmonauts: inside the Yuri Gagarin Training Center”, Springer Praxis, 2006, p. 228 Craig Covault, “Mir Cosmonauts Prepare For Reentry As NASA Holds Soyuz Talks in Moscow”, Aviation Week, March 23, 1992, p. 24 N.L. Johnson, D.M. Rodvold, “Europe and Asia in Space, 1991-1992”, Kaman Sciences Corp., 1991, p. 76 Semyonov, op. cit., pp. 521, Anatoly Zak, “Russia proposes lifeboat for a US space station“, Russian Space Web, accessed 09.08.2025 S.N. Konyukhov (ed.), “Called by Time: From Confrontation to International Cooperation”, ART-PRESS, 2004, ch. 2 Maks Skiendzielewski can be found on The Artist Formerly Known as Twitter at @galopujacy_jez. A version of this article was previously published by the author on Medium.

Reassessing NASA's Procurement Strategy

SLS NASA has used cost-plus contracts on some parts of Artemis, like SLS (above), but fixed-price versions elsewhere. (credit: NASA/Sam Lott) Reassessing NASA procurement strategy: A hybrid approach by Eli Lichtenstein Tuesday, May 26, 2026 NASA is reshaping its spaceflight strategy on a scale not seen since the Space Shuttle’s phaseout in 2011. Unsatisfied with the pace of the Artemis program, administrator Jared Isaacman has proposed an ambitious agenda: monthly robotic lunar landings, annual crewed missions to the Moon, and a permanent surface base. Funded through traditional cost-plus procurement, SLS began experiencing the same bloat and overruns as its Constellation predecessor. After decades of relegation to low Earth orbit, a refocus on more complex and long-term crewed missions is to be applauded. But each of these goals requires NASA to procure vehicles and other hardware, a detail NASA has yet to decide on. “The procurement method, how we would do it, I think that’s still open,” said NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya.[1] As noble as NASA’s goals are, history shows that how NASA intends to achieve them is just as important. NASA leadership undertook a similarly radical rethink of its plans not long ago. Along with the Space Shuttle, the then-successor Constellation program was controversially scrapped, abandoning goals of crewed Moon missions amid ballooning costs and unfeasible deadlines. In its stead came two nimbler, yet diametrically opposed, successor programs. The first was SLS, born of a political compromise in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act. Built from legacy components on pre-existing production lines, SLS was billed as a natural low-cost successor to the shuttle. But funded through traditional cost-plus procurement, SLS began experiencing the same bloat and overruns as its predecessor. In a funding scheme where every dollar spent is a dollar reimbursed, contractors have little incentive to control costs. The effects on SLS are clear. Per-vehicle production costs have reached $2.5 billion, not even including Orion or ground systems, and this is only expected to increase over time.[2] And SLS fares no better in launch cadence. While the three-year gap between its first two flights may be partially excused by Orion capsule development issues, the program still is realistically capable of producing at most one vehicle per year.[3] In the face of ever-increasing cost overruns and delays, missions like Europa Clipper have turned elsewhere, prompting growing calls from within the White House and beyond to phase out the vehicle. But this was not NASA’s only path forward. Beginning with the George W. Bush Administration, NASA experimented with a new procurement method focused on cost reduction, and NASA would turn to this now in the same reauthorization bill. In an initiative spearheaded by the agency’s deputy administrator at the time, Lori Garver, NASA bolstered funding for space services purchased from private companies at fixed prices. No longer would the government give a traditional company all the funding it needed and more to build a government-owned design. Now, private companies were tasked with providing services, be it transfer of cargo or even crew to the International Space Station, with the companies designing, owning, and operating their vehicles. Under a fixed-price contract, if the company could complete the service for less than the contract price, it could keep the spare change. The results have exceeded all expectations. SpaceX has now launched and returned more than 30 cargo flights, in addition to over a dozen crew flights, all at record-low prices. Alongside this, the flight-proven, company-owned Dragon capsule would be used for commercial flights, including the Polaris and Axiom missions hosting private astronauts. The conviction that fixed-price could solve all the ills of cost-plus was quickly adopted by agency leadership, and new fixed-price procurement programs were instituted for everything from crewed vehicles to lunar spacesuits. But the road ahead would be rockier. The limits of fixed-cost While SpaceX thrived in its symbiotic partnership with NASA, other companies using fixed funding have failed to demonstrate comparable results. Boeing’s Starliner, Dragon’s direct competitor, has to date failed to perform. Its first test flight to the station suffered from an internal clock failure, precluding a docking with the ISS. The next attempt succeeded, but only after experiencing thruster problems. Most infamously, the first crewed flight again experienced thruster failures, this time preventing the crew from returning to Earth on the vessel. Instead, SpaceX ferried the two Starliner pilots back on a Crew Dragon, to great media attention and speculation about stranded astronauts in the interim. Plagued by so many problems unforeseen, Boeing is reportedly considering exiting the commercial space market entirely—with the significant exception of cost-plus-funded SLS—due to losses of $2 billion incurred by exceeding fixed-price caps.[4] In addition, Sierra Space, more recently selected for cargo services under another fixed-price contract, is also reducing planned cargo resupply flights to the station as it faces development issues. The problems continue in other programs. As part of Artemis, NASA selected two companies to develop lunar spacesuits. But one company has backed out as development costs eclipsed fixed-price funding, leaving Axiom alone to shoulder this critical element of NASA’s crewed return to the moon.[5] Ultimately, cost forecasting is an educated guess. A company that anticipates completing a mission on a fixed budget can find itself financially exposed when developing hardware for the first time. And failures are not confined to crewed programs. By apportioning small amounts to multiple emerging companies, the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program seeks to enable low-cost lunar access through competitive funding of simple landers via fixed-cost contracts. The agency hopes to seed a new market for lunar transportation as it did for LEO, even if some missions fail. But the funds are truly limited, averaging less than $130 million each.[6] By comparison, NASA’s low-cost Discovery class of planetary science probes has a cost cap of $500 million per mission. Yet CLPS has yielded one failure, two partial failures, two cancellations, and one success —poor odds even by NASA’s own risk-tolerant standards.[7] The private industry was simply not mature enough to take on lunar exploration with minimal oversight and funding, concluded NASA’s Office of Inspector General.[8] The problem is the gap between estimated and actual costs. Ultimately, cost forecasting is an educated guess. A company that anticipates completing a mission on a fixed budget can find itself financially exposed when developing hardware for the first time. Fixed-price procurement excels for acquiring additional copies of known products but can be equally problematic for developing novel capabilities. There is no free lunch in procurement strategy. What about SpaceX? Should, then, NASA merely continue to turn to SpaceX for its launch needs? The company seems to have solved all of NASA’s problems, responding to every agency request cheaply and reliably. But as beneficial as this partnership has been, this reliance risks creating an unhealthy dependency on the company for future success. SpaceX is, ultimately, an independent private company, one at the whims of its leader, funders, and regulators. Concerningly for national space interests, SpaceX is now pivoting toward space-based data centers, even merging with xAI.[9] What if SpaceX decided to discontinue support for Dragon or lunar Starship to focus on data centers? NASA would be stranded. There is another growing risk in the future, a regulatory one. SpaceX is now cornering multiple markets, from launch to satellite Internet services. While many proponents view this as a just result of efficient and innovative business practices, this administration included, future administrations may not look toward SpaceX as kindly. Rather than viewing services like Starlink and AI compute service as subsidiary funding sources for long-term Starship funding, they may view SpaceX as encroaching too many markets for the economy to bear. This is especially the case if SpaceX is seen as overly partisan. If SpaceX were to be separated from its revenue sources, it might be forced to focus on short-term commercial missions, at the expense of ambitious exploratory programs. For better or worse, there is evidence of monopolistic activity already, as SpaceX grows in dominance. The Falcon 9, despite its cost-efficiency, is still priced at roughly two to four times its estimated internal cost.[10] With Starliner’s struggles reducing competition, seat costs to the ISS have increased on Crew Dragon, outpacing inflation,[11] as have rideshare costs on Falcon.[12] Contractors achieving low internal costs don’t automatically pass savings to customers, including NASA. NASA’s partnership with SpaceX has safeguarded the nation’s presence in space. When Northrop Grumman lost its launch vehicle to supply disruptions and Boeing’s Starliner couldn’t return its crew, SpaceX was there to save the day. But if NASA is to be the premier space agency in the world, it cannot be dependent on any one company. A hybrid approach Thus, NASA must continue to foster a space services economy in which multiple companies can participate. To do so, the agency must commit to providing upstart companies the funds they need to break out of development, all while not incentivizing companies to run up costs. How can NASA do this? With smart contract structuring. A fixed-price-plus-partial-cost (FPPC) program would combine the best of both incentive structures. The contract would be divided into two components. First, a fixed price would be set, allowing cost-efficient contractors to earn profit should their production costs fall below this. But if not, the second component kicks in. A partial-cost reimbursement will provide a fraction—perhaps 50%—of costs back to the contractor. This mitigates insolvency by providing a financial lifeline, but also requires the contractor to contribute a share of excess costs. It also encourages companies to provide accurate cost estimates upfront, rather than lowballing to undercut other offers while being unable to complete production themselves. Importantly, any cost overruns would preclude the company from profiting on the mission at all: there is still every incentive to keep costs below the initial fixed price ceiling. Applying FPPC to Isaacman’s vision The effects of FPPC are best realized when applied to block purchases of hardware. The work to design the bulk of a vehicle only has to be done once; starting a production line of standardized landers or satellite buses, coupled with custom scientific instruments, will always be cheaper than designing new spacecraft for each mission. The Perseverance rover, for instance, cost $300 million less than its predecessor, Curiosity, by reusing the same design and spare parts.[13] Contractors will be incentivized to move beyond the cushion of cost-plus contracting if they know they can apply lessons from the development article to later, more profitable replications. NASA’s goals are ambitious. How it achieves them must be equally so. This is especially important as NASA pivots toward a rapid increase in flight cadence. For CLPS, for instance, Administrator Isaacman seeks to launch a new mission each month,[14] amortizing development costs and reducing institutional knowledge losses via a more consistent stream of flight sorties. While science payloads will change and improvements will be made incrementally, the most efficient approach here is to contract companies to produce batches of standardized robotic landers upfront. This is also true of repeat crewed flights to the Moon. Isaacman has hinted at replacing SLS’s flight capability with commercial offerings for later Artemis missions.[15] If NASA opens future launches to the commercial industry, they will likely procure in-development super heavy vehicles like SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s New Glenn 9x4, and again it is most sensible to procure these vehicles in multiple for repeated Artemis missions. NASA’s goals are ambitious. How it achieves them must be equally so. History shows that neither extreme of procurement has yielded the intended result, either breeding complacency long after development or depriving funding even before its completion. A hybrid approach, one that rewards efficiency while mitigating the inevitable costs of innovation, gives NASA the best chance of making monthly lunar missions and a permanent surface base a reality. Endnotes SpaceNews, “NASA considering sharp increase in robotic lunar landings.” GAO, “Space Launch System: Cost Transparency Needed to Monitor Program Affordability”. “Based on our analysis of the contract, the cost to produce successive core stages is increasing over time.” NASA OIG, “NASA’s Transition of the Space Launch System to a Commercial Services Contract” Wall Street Journal, “Boeing Explores Sale of Space Business”. SpaceNews, “Collins Aerospace pulls back from NASA spacesuit contract” Payload Research, “The Ultra Low-Cost Economics of NASA’s CLPS Lunar Program” Sky and Telescope, January 2026, “Fly Me to the Moon” NASA OIG, “Final Report - IG-24-013 - NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services Initiative” Reuters, “SpaceX acquires xAI in record-setting deal as Musk looks to unify AI and space ambitions” SpaceX’s estimated internal launch cost for Falcon 9 is $15–26 million (2020 dollars), or approximately $16–28 million adjusted to 2022 dollars. See Ryan Whitwam, “SpaceX: Elon Musk Breaks Down the Cost of Reusable Rockets,” Inverse, November 2020. The listed commercial price is $67 million (2022 dollars). See “SpaceX Increases Launch and Starlink Prices,” Payload Space, March 2022. Payload Research, “Starliner by the Numbers” Payload, “The Promise Of A World of Low Launch Prices Is Still Far Off”; see also here. The Planetary Society, “The Cost of Perseverance, in Context” SpaceNews, “NASA considering sharp increase in robotic lunar landings.” Bloomberg, “Boeing’s Moon Rocket Faces Uncertain Future Under Trump’s NASA” Eli Lichtenstein is a law student at the George Washington University Law School and an avid space enthusiast. He can be contacted at e.lichtenstein@law.gwu.edu. Note: we are now moderating comments. There will be a delay in posting comments and no guarante

Honoring The Air Force Special Processing Facility

Deep Black on the West Coast (part 2): Honoring the Air Force Special Processing Facility by Dwayne A. Day Tuesday, May 26, 2026 On Friday, May 15, a ceremony was held on the grounds of the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio to dedicate a monument to the people who worked for a secretive organization on the West Coast. The Secretary of the Air Force Office of Special Projects, or SAFSP. But another group that was also technically part of SAFSP was left out of the ceremony. The new memorial does not mention the contributions of the 6594 Test Squadron Air Force Special Projects Production Facility (AFSPPF) based at Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts, located on the other side of the country from SAFSP. AFSPPF was a tenant unit at Westover Air Force Base, and administratively supported by Hanscom Air Force Base, but it received guidance, direction and funding from SAFSP on the West Coast. It operated from 1961 to 1976. monument monument Photocopy and photo from a Performance Evaluation Team (PET) report on a late 1965 GAMBIT reconnaissance mission. The image shows a CORN reconnaissance target at a USAF base in the United States. The PET reports evaluated the camera performance for reconnaissance missions so that they could be improved in the future. They were produced by the AFFSPF in Massachusetts, and as were the teams that managed the CORN targets. (credit: NRO via Harry Stranger) The AFSPPF was an imagery facility and had three divisions that directly supported the National Reconnaissance Program. These were production, evaluation, and R&D. The production division had an original negative and duplicate film photo processing facility that handled CORONA, GAMBIT, HEXAGON, U-2 and D-21 TAGBOARD drone missions. Eastman-Kodak in Rochester, New York was the primary site for original negative production, with AFSPPF serving as backup. But AFSPPF also provided the bulk of dupe production for all US military and government mapping, charting, and geodesy organizations. Over its 15-year history the facility produced over 180 million feet (54.9 million meters) of film. The film was carefully inspected by highly trained Air Force quality control personnel for physical defects and image quality. monument A "challenge coin" presented at the recent dedication of the SAFSP memorial dedication. (credit: Pat Pressel) After each top secret satellite mission, a community Performance Evaluation Team (PET) would convene at AFSPPF to review and document system performance. They assessed the mission’s resolution, image quality, camera performance, and other mission aspects like the use of different film types. The PET produced a comprehensive report, and many such reports have now been declassified. Whereas intelligence reports indicated what was seen by the satellites, the PET reports indicated how well the mission performed in terms of the imagery, so that future missions could be improved. In addition, the Controlled Range Network (CORN) program deployed teams with resolution targets to various locations within the continental United States to provide image quality baselines during passes by satellites and was managed and directed by AFSPPF. AFSPPF was also designated and funded to seek out and evaluate emerging technologies in film processing, printing, and image quality evaluation. Promising technologies, materials, and chemistries were introduced into the facility and other processing facilities. monument A working model of the HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite camera system was shown at the recent dedication of the SAFSP memorial dedication. It is nicknamed “Fido.” Although it was left out of the new memorial, in 2014 a plaque mentioning AFSPPF was dedicated at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. The mission of the unit was partially revealed in 1995, and more completely in 2015. It may be the subject of a future article. Dwayne Day is interested in hearing from people who worked for SAFSP during the Cold War who can share what it was like to work for the secretive organization. He can be reached at zirconic1@cox.net.

NASA's Moon Base Plan Is Bigger Than You Think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmeYznuuEhc

Space-X Announces Manned Mars Flyby

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvRver7oE2I