History, Politics And Current Affairs

Kunkmiester wrote: ↑Thu Oct 16, 2025 12:40 am X has been crazy about the condition it was in at the end.

Nuts that it has holes that big.

I think they have discovered how far they can take things with removing heatshield tiles.

Hopefully we will see a catch at Starbase Texas sometime next year.

The last several days Tally Ho has been in San Diego and they made a stop today at the San Diego Maritime Museum. Got to visit up close "Tally Ho" and talk briefly with Leo and I thanked him for sharing the story of his rebuild of "Tally Ho". Tomorrow they are leaving for Mexico ...

That is excellent news, congratulations.

Really good interview with Jared Isaacman. Covers a range of topics but goes fairly deep into the problems that Jared did see with NASA and what NASA needs to be doing.

https://youtu.be/_OsxqifuTi4?si=zRU4wE3O_IPhsTOe

Congress has done a lot but NASA has FUBAR a lot of it themselves too. Like projects blowing through the budgets, Webb is a prime example but the Mars Sample Return is a contender too. When NASA says the plan is FUBAR you know its bad. The prime contractor for JWST is Northrup Grumman not NASA. Cos...

When I was laid off from JSC in 2012, I had expected NASA would have people back in orbit within no longer than five years, seven on the outside. Until SpaceX came long, I was wondering if the US would ever put people into orbit on a US vehicle. Now I'm wondering if China or SpaceX will get to Mars...

When I was laid off from JSC in 2012, I had expected NASA would have people back in orbit within no longer than five years, seven on the outside. Until SpaceX came long, I was wondering if the US would ever put people into orbit on a US vehicle. Now I'm wondering if China or SpaceX will get to Mars...

Flight Test-10 SpaceX nailed all objectives. Test Deployment of Satellites, Engine Re-light and then landing in the Indian Ocean on target. Starship got a little toasty on the way down but SpaceX was testing how much they could push the vehicle. Super Heavy booster was landed in the Gulf of America ...

I thought this was very nicely done.

https://youtu.be/h3Rwhpbm3Fg?si=w6CM4OqleAIY81KP "The Most Autistic Billionaire in the World (Dos Equis Ad)"

Along with all the RoboTaxi testing in Austin. Tesla did a full autonomous delivery of a persons new car.

https://youtu.be/GU16hXSSGKs?si=IIUk4uJEiAYq6hZW

I know what they want and it’s an absolutely awesome vision. I’m just wondering if it’s achievable at present. That “little scratch” was pretty devastating I think V1 of the Starship Upper stage is pointing the way that it full reusability is achievable. They got a V1 upper stage back down intact t...

An outstanding point! Most of the problems so far have been during re-entry. Setting aside; Open the bay doors, Hal A few launch failures And now a tank failure below its designed pressure! (Shades of Apollo 13) It’s worth noting that this last failure would more than likely have been non-survival ...

Looks like the payload bay door finally opened. Well, that's one way of opening the Pod Bay doors, Hal. I think the astronauts are going to need some confidence building measures in Starship. This is starting to look a lot like the Soviet N1 program. I would make the assertion that if SpaceX had de...

Looks like the payload bay door finally opened.

Musk is saying that preliminary data suggests it was a COPV tank in the payload bay that failed below it's proof pressure.

On more dumb news the Trump Administration has withdrawn the nomination for Jared Isaacman for NASA Administrator. Laura Loomer isn't very happy, blaming it on Deep space operatives trying to damage ties between Musk and Trump. EXCLUSIVE: Deep State operatives are trying to derail President Trump’s...

On more dumb news the Trump Administration has withdrawn the nomination for Jared Isaacman for NASA Administrator. https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-drops-private-astronaut-jared-isaacman-as-nasa-nominee-b8497169?st=wPXx5H&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink Apparently he wasn't loyal enou...

I don't understand why reusing Booster-14 from test flight-7 for test flight-9 is important enough to warrant specific mention. They've been reusing boosters for years now. What is going on that makes this particular reuse of booster 14 so important? I strongly suspect there's information here that...

Belushi TD wrote: ↑Tue Apr 01, 2025 11:27 pm Why is this important?

Belushi TD

Booster re-use of Super-Heavy or Fram-2?

It is more and more appearing that SpaceX is going to re-use Booster-14 from test flight-7 for test flight-9.

The Starliner mission was a lot more dramatic than Boeing and NASA was letting on at the time, some scary stuff in this interview with the crew: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/04/the-harrowing-story-of-what-flying-starliner-was-like-when-its-thrusters-failed/ I had no idea it was this bad. &quo...