History, Politics And Current Affairs

Interesting excerpts from Eric Berger's forthcoming book "Reentry" https://twitter.com/FutureJurvetson/status/1827393665377169618 NASA just decided that SpaceX needs to rescue Boeing’s astronauts. Written before the Starliner debacle, Berger’s forthcoming book Reentry tells the backstory w...

Anyone knows why NASA didn't put into the contract that everybody has use the same spacesuit or least the same fittings? You think after the Apollo 13 LM cylindric scrubbers and the CM square ones NASA would want things interchangeable. I think people are making a bigger of deal out of the incompat...

Well, it sucks for Boeing, but I strongly suspect its the right decision. The only question I have is why does it have to wait until February? There's no way to shift the schedule to get a return capsule up there sooner? The best part of all of this is that if they're going to return Starliner with...

Both a remarkably sensible decision by NASA, and a mega-hit for Boeing. Who will hopefully, be billed for expenses, consequential loss etc etc by both NASA and Space-X... It really doesn't matter much to SpaceX. Just a change in procedures to launch with two people instead of four and sending up ne...

It has been confirmed. Another Boeing FUBAR.

I saw one in all black at the 4th of July. Again, if you’re into that vibe, it works. But it’s 100% a luxury good. This guy went all black, new wheels and custom red leather interior. I mean it looks good but I would never spend money on something like that. https://youtu.be/_NT6QIRz4S0?si=reW_2g68...

Apparently it is all about the wrap.

CNBC published a recent hit piece on SpaceX and their operations in Texas about the water deluge system polluting the waters around Starbase. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/12/spacex-repeatedly-polluted-waters-in-texas-tceq-epa-found.html SpaceX's response on X. CNBC’s story on Starship’s launch opera...

Summary of conf call today. Boeing was not present at the conf call. It was just NASA. Roundup of today's @NASA Teleconference about @Space_Station Operations and @BoeingSpace's Starliner CFT mission: Crew-9 - NASA has set up the Crew-9 Dragon to have the flexibility to launch with 2 astronauts, and...

Interesting take that I hadn't thought about until now. From a political stand-point with a election coming soon and Harris in charge of the National Space Council. Nelson knows there is zero room for any risk taking with astronauts lives right now. Unless NASA is 100% confident in Starliner then th...

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/nasa-likely-to-significantly-delay-the-launch-of-crew-9-due-to-starliner-issues/ NASA is now delaying crew-9. The current version of the software loaded on Starliner doesn't support automated undocking and re-entry without a crew. They would need to upload new ...

“Entertaining” to say the least. In defense of Boeing (says cautiously) aren’t the leaks/problems in the Service Module and not the capsule? The Service Module that is jettisoned prior to re-entry? That’s a question If so, isn’t NASA being rather overly cautious? Not that I want to defend either at...

Apparently somebody at Boeing thought it was a good decision to take this fight public. NASA is probably not amused. https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/1819534540865441814?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1819534540865441814%7Ctwgr%5E4f9cb8fdec5407cac61e1b57e1d7beaea2d520fa%7Ctwcon...

Or, in the vernacular, fuck ‘em. They earned it. I’m beyond done with this being “the best we can do” since SpaceX shows it’s clearly not. NASA and the US Space Force want a robust contractor community to support it's missions. However that isn't occurring when SpaceX out competes other companies b...

Or, in the vernacular, fuck ‘em. They earned it. I’m beyond done with this being “the best we can do” since SpaceX shows it’s clearly not. NASA and the US Space Force want a robust contractor community to support it's missions. However that isn't occurring when SpaceX out competes other companies b...

SpaceX has returned to flight. The investigation is ongoing but the FAA agreed that there was no public safety issues had been involved in the anomaly.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2024/07 ... ight-2024/

Interesting article by Eric Berger. Basically SpaceX is blowing away the competition so much that NASA is having difficulty getting bidders on contracts. The ISS de-orbit vehicle, NASA had to change the terms of the contract to include cost-plus or Northrop wouldn't bid. SpaceX wasn't going to bid o...

After over 300+ successful launches in a row with the F9, it has suffered a anomaly with it's second stage during a Starlink launch out of Vandenberg. The 2nd stage had a LOX leak that was visible on the camera from the 2nd stage. This resulted in the 2nd stage experiencing a RUD during re-ignition ...

https://youtube.com/shorts/8OTFPAa8Bw0?si=OvJ150Oz55lrFXXv That interview was over a year ago. Right before the IFT-4 launch, the Everyday Astronaut did a interview with Musk. Really gives a good view of how much SpaceX has built over the last several years and moved out of tents into buildings. Th...

Good summary article by NSF (Nasa Space Flight) of the 1st half of SpaceX's record breaking year. It is a long article but SpaceX had a lot of accomplishments for the 1st half of 2024. https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/news/spacex/ SpaceX continues to break records with its Falcon rockets during 2024 ...