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: The California Science Center's "Go for Stack" campaign took another step forward this week with the completion of the two solid rocket boosters for Endeavour's launchpad-like exhibit. On Tuesday (Dec. 5), the second of two forward assemblies, or nose cones, was lifted into place. The work preceded Endeavour's current horizontal display closing to the public on Dec. 31. Stacking of the orbiter and its external tank is set for early next year.
: The seven members of the International Space Station's Expedition 70 crew took time Wednesday (Dec. 6) to mark the 25th anniversary of their home in Earth orbit by speaking with the commander of the mission that joined the outpost's first two modules. NASA associate administrator Bob Cabana, who in 1998 brought together the United States' Unity node with Russia's Zarya functional cargo block, asked the astronauts in orbit about the legacy he helped to begin and that they are continuing.
: A NASA astronaut who died in 2001 as a result of injuries sustained in a plane crash is being memorialized by Northrop Grumman with the naming of a space station-bound cargo ship. The NG-20 Cygnus spacecraft will fly atop a SpaceX rocket early next year as the SS Patricia Hilliard "Patty" Robertson with food and supplies for the ISS Expedition 70 crew.
: "There are a bunch of people out there who think, 'Oh, it is horrible. There is nothing enjoyable about it at all.' That's not true," says Vickie Kloeris about the current state of space food. Kloeris' newly-released memoir, "Space Bites," chronicles her 34 years as a NASA food scientist. collectSPACE interviewed Kloeris about the book and her favorite (and least favorite) space food items.
: Icon Heroes has released a new set of collectible embroidered patches based on the screen-used emblems from Season 4 of the Apple TV+ series "For All Mankind." The set of 13 insignia feature the locations, spacecraft and missions that have driven the show's alternate space history storyline to Happy Valley on Mars and the surface of nearby asteroids.
: The U.S. Mint has revealed the final design for Alabama's 2024 American Innovation $1 coin, which honors NASA's historic Saturn V rocket. The golden dollar depicts the Apollo-era booster in flight, launching in front of the moon, its destination for nine of its 13 flights between 1967 and 1973. The Saturn V coins will be available directly from the U.S. Mint starting next spring.
: NASA on Friday (Dec. 15) donated its prototype for the "Ingenuity" Mars Helicopter, the first vehicle to achieve powered flight on a planet other than Earth, to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. In 2016, the prototype successfully flew during a test at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), giving NASA the proof needed to complete and send Ingenuity to Mars.
: Speaking on Wednesday (Dec. 20) at a meeting of the National Space Council, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris announced that NASA would land an international astronaut on the moon by the end of this decade. Harris did not specify on what Artemis mission the foreign crew member would fly nor did she say from what country the astronaut would be chosen.
: In "Home Alone," burglar Marv Murchins' vehicle of choice is a Chrysler-built 1986 Dodge Ram. In "For All Mankind," NASA Administrator Eli Hobson was previously the CEO of Chrysler. That is as close as the two characters come to having anything in common other than they are both played by actor Daniel Stern. collectSPACE spoke with Stern about being cast to lead NASA in the Apple TV+ alternate space history series.
: When the space shuttle was first offered as a Mold-A-Rama plastic toy, the machines making them on demand had in been in use for already 30 years. Now 40 years later, the once state-of-the-art winged spacecraft has joined Mold-A-Rama as being vintage. Still, new space shuttles are being 'launched' daily, adding to a colorful and collectible legacy that spans the United States.
: B1058, SpaceX's first Falcon 9 first stage to launch astronauts into orbit, is mostly no more. As it was being returned to shore after its record 19th flight, high winds and waves caused the booster to topple. All that remains was the lower segment of the stage including its nine engines. Lost with the rest of the rocket was a marking unique to this vehicle: NASA's "worm" logo, which was added in May 2020 on its first flight with a crew.
: As the brief synopsis for this week's episode of "For All Mankind" reads, "plans are made with interplanetary ramifications." In this exclusive clip provided to collectSPACE by Apple TV+, what those plans are comes into greater focus, as something that has "never been done" holds the potential to change the course of human exploration on the alternate space history drama.
: When the clock strikes 5 p.m. PST on Sunday (Dec. 31), an 11-year run will come to its end for the space shuttle Endeavour. In preparation for taking the retired orbiter vertical in its new museum, the California Science Center is closing the pavilion where Endeavour has been exhibited in the horizontal since 2012. The next time that the public will be able to see Endeavour will be at its new exhibit's opening expected in a few years.
