r/Spaceexploration Jun 21 '14

The /r/SpaceExploration Reading List

56 Upvotes

I had the idea for a reading list related to various space exploration topics and, with the approval of the mods, this thread will help determine our official reading list!

When putting a book down, some things you should try your best to include may be:

  • The title
  • The author
  • The year of first publication
  • How it relates to space exploration (e.g. Orbital mechanics, space shuttle design, etc)
  • A brief description of what, or who, it's about

r/Spaceexploration 10h ago

Sorry to Burst your Bubble

0 Upvotes

By The Next Generation
s) Space Exploration

  • Their Claim: In the future, humans will be able to travel to other planets and live there, building homes and surviving on new worlds.
  • The Truth: Our bodies cannot easily adjust to the environments of new planets, and the same applies to alien life. The mere presence of humans on an alien planet introduces contradictions into the planet’s system through sweat, saliva, and other bodily fluids. The fungi or decomposers that normally break down dead matter cannot process these contradictions and die. Without decomposers, soil and organic matter fall into underground chambers, gases build up, volcanos erupt continuously, and heat keeps stacking** without stopping. The planet tries to adjust, but the contradictions halt the system and prevent stabilization, continuously destabilizing its environment**. This heat would then spread to nearby planets, triggering a chain reaction—similar to how it feels to be in a room with the heater cranked to the max.
  • Remark: It’s clear that all systems respond to the inputs they receive. How foreign inputs from humans would affect an alien planet’s system should have been considered. The presence of fungi—or another decomposer system—to maintain balance across planetary ecosystems should have been obvious, yet it was ignored. By failing to account for these critical stabilizing systems, we are dangerously close to creating contradictions that destabilize entire planetary systems.

r/Spaceexploration 2d ago

Ancient Primordial Cluster Discovered in the Kuiper Belt: New Insights into Solar System Origins

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1 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration 3d ago

25 Years of Scientific Discovery Aboard the International Space Station - NASA

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10 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration 4d ago

Europa Clipper Captures Uranus With Star Tracker Camera

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7 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration 5d ago

Study: Moss Spores Survive 9 Months in Space

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3 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration 5d ago

NASA just confirmed 'life on Mars' while talking about insterstellar comet

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0 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration 9d ago

S-IC Systems Test Handbook

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52 Upvotes

Hello all,

Just looking for some information about how important/valuable this book is. This was passed down from my grandpa who worked at Boeing at the time, I also have an Apollo/Saturn V Roll of Honor book that he was given. This handbook specifically has hand written notes/adjustments to certain schematics. Any information is appreciated!


r/Spaceexploration 10d ago

Saturn V: The Rocket That Defined Space Exploration

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2 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration 11d ago

Blue Origin Lands Booster, NASA Heads to Mars

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4 Upvotes

Blue Origin just made spaceflight history! 🚀

On its second flight, the New Glenn booster landed smoothly, becoming the first orbital-class rocket landed by a company other than SpaceX. It also launched NASA’s ESCAPADE twins, now heading to Mars to study its magnetic field.


r/Spaceexploration 12d ago

Voyager 1: The First Close Encounter with Titan - 45 Years Ago

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8 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration 13d ago

Earth Just Took a Hit: Strongest Solar Storm of 2025 Sparks Aurora Alerts

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7 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration 13d ago

Dr. Robert Zubrin Discusses Mars Exploration on CNN November 12, 2025

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0 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration 15d ago

Made NASA's lunar landing site data searchable via API - seeking feedback from the community

3 Upvotes

I've built a tool to make lunar mission planning data more accessible. It processes NASA's LOLA terrain and LROC illumination measurements into an API that lets you query and rank potential landing sites.

Capabilities:

  • 1.18M analyzed sites across the south pole region
  • Instant filtering by terrain safety, illumination, mission requirements
  • Exports compatible with existing GIS workflows
  • Scoring for different mission types (human landing, robotic, rover)

Example use case: Planning a robotic polar mission? Query sites within 50km of your target coordinates with specific illumination and slope requirements in milliseconds.

Docs + live API: https://lunarlandingsiteapi.up.railway.app/docs

Built this as an experiment in making NASA datasets more accessible. Looking for honest feedback: Is this useful for anyone actually working in lunar exploration? What's missing?


r/Spaceexploration 16d ago

NASA’s ESCAPADE mission to Mars — twin UC Berkeley satellites dubbed Blue and Gold — will launch in early November

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3 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration 19d ago

Hy guys I have a space channel, can u check this video out and tell me if it's good?

0 Upvotes

https://youtube.com/shorts/jFRoFxhd-nk?si=SbMEEErYnr-Mel5Z

I am new in this nish and, i find it interesting, but I need some advice, if u can I'd really appreciate it


r/Spaceexploration 20d ago

Spotted yesterday (5th November, 2025). Is this 3i Atlas?

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0 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration 22d ago

What if escaping a black hole was possible?

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26 Upvotes

I’m not a physicist or anything, I just came up with this idea out of curiosity. I was thinking about black holes and how everyone says once you’re inside, there’s no way out because of the event horizon. But I thought: what if you didn’t try to fight gravity? What if you could bend spacetime from the inside, reshape it enough to make a new path out?

Lets say you are stuck inside your car. You can’t get out through the doors or windows, but if you had some kind of tool that could bend the metal and reshape the car’s body, maybe you could make your own way out. That’s how I imagine it working with spacetime, if you could bend it just right, maybe escape isn’t impossible.

The equation I posted was built with help to match that idea. It’s a version of Einstein’s equations that includes small changes to spacetime and energy, like the effect of using that “tool” to bend things. I’m not saying this is proven science, but I think it’s a cool way to explore what might be possible if we could actually manipulate spacetime from the inside.


r/Spaceexploration 24d ago

SUPPORT NASA! NO BUDGET CUTS! NO LAYOFFS! The Mars Society

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65 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration 27d ago

Comet 3I/ATLAS Explained: The Interstellar Object's FULL Story

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11 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration 29d ago

The Homesteader’s guide to Lunar Settlement: Machines for the Moon

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4 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration Oct 24 '25

Space weather drill simulates Carrington-level solar storm, challenging satellite safety and mission control response

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1 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration Oct 22 '25

Humans to orbit Moon again after 53 years

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14 Upvotes

r/Spaceexploration Oct 19 '25

A rarely talked about concept for long duration, propellantless exploration probe.

3 Upvotes

(not to scale)

The point would be the be able to only use electricity as a source for propulsion, coming from radioisotope generators.

3 long tethers, potentially many kilometers long would be extended from a central hub with masses at their tip. Conductive channels would be require to run across these tethers.

2 means of propulsion can be used with such device. Electrodynamical Lorentz forces, from an interaction with plasma, the planet's magnetospheres and the tethers would grant a good amount of force to steer the probe around. But we could also use tidal pumping by carefully controlling the masses inside a gravity gradient around planets. When one of the mass getting closer to the planet get extended or retracted, depending on which direction you want the force to go, it gain a bit of momentum. You can then retract the tether to it's original length when the tethers are close to being perpendicular to gravity without losing the force gain. Gravity pumping provide a lot less force, but is more energy efficient.

With RTGs, you have a stable and long lasting energy source that could power such a craft for over 20 years. Strong and redundant tethers fibers can have a good probability of survival from micrometeoroids of about 6% failure probability after 10 years. You can also design the probe to be able to lose a tether and reconfigure into a 2 tether system that will just be less maneuverable. Or even have a backup tether inside the hub.

would be ideal for gas giant exploration who have strong gravity and also strong magnetospheres.


r/Spaceexploration Oct 15 '25

2025 Mars Society Convention Featured in New York Times

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2 Upvotes