NASA dropped this video yesterday. It’s like a movie trailer.
20 thoughts on “Coming Attractions”
It is similar to the build up to ISS. Then and now, I get bored by the propaganda and rather they just get on with it. Kick the tires and light the fires. Yeah, I know the Falcon doesn’t have a parking break, but when you think about it; parking break is an apt metaphor for NASA.
Very like a movie trailer. But, still more so, very much like a campaign ad. All it lacks, in that respect, is a Jim Bridenstine voice-over at the end identifying himself and saying that he “approves this message.”
And that’s a good thing, in my view. This rapidly approaching mission launch will be a non-trivially big deal after all. A bit of hustings-style tub-thumping in advance is entirely appropriate.
Especially given that most official NASA video tends to have the clunky white-bread earnestness and minimal production values of some forgettable film you were forced to sit through in the elementary school milieu of the mid-20th century. A bit of glitz and flash and a good soundtrack are certainly preferable to the longstanding soporific NASA norm.
One hopes this becomes the new NASA norm, in fact.
And one cannot but think that the aforementioned Administrator Bridenstine is pretty much single-handedly responsible for ordering up this “documentary short film” as the motion picture academy would dub it. As an ex-politico, J.B. certainly appreciates the value of going for the gut in one’s public messaging. It is simply inconceivable that something like this would ever have been produced on the watches of, say, Charlie Bolden or Mike Griffin.
This is a five-finger warm-up. The NASA-SpaceX combination will have much more to promote in similar style over the coming few years. Bring it on, say I.
I like Jim Bridenstine. I think he’s done gone a good job. It’s a bummer he was a casualty of the Democrat/Muslim/Deep State-led Trump Derangement Syndrome wave that delayed the appointment of many positions. He will have done more in 3 years than Charlie Bolden did in 8…and don’t get me started on the big rocket/big state fethisist Griffin (the world would be a better place without him).
I used to regard Griffin the same way. But since standing up SDA and trying to reform defense procurement, I’m inclined to give him credit for having seen the error of his former ways and to now be doing penance.
How effective he will be is another matter. He still seems to be as abrasively monomaniacal and office-politics tone deaf now as he was 20 years ago. I’m just going to keep a hopeful eye on things and hope he can do even half as much good this time around as he did harm on his last tour in government service.
“And that’s a good thing, in my view. This rapidly approaching mission launch will be a non-trivially big deal after all. A bit of hustings-style tub-thumping in advance is entirely appropriate.”
It will be a very big deal.
I also expect a scrub or two on the way due to weather or something else.
But I would rather keep the tub-thumping for after the flight.
A wayward boat would be just our luck!!!
Let it be known that the Coast Guard has authorization to sink any boat that violates the safe zone. Give the Air Force authorization to shoot down any plane that violates the airspace. No, I’m not kidding.
I have no problem with tub-thumping both before and after the flight.
I think that Elon Musk (& possibly Bezos as well) will manage to not make space at all “boring” once they are able to get going big time with what that are intending to do. Even if they have to higher a real later day Don Draper type to sell the public on space. Only a government agency (NASA) after the spectacular success of the lunar landings managed to make space boring to the American public.
Possible contender is Trump’s Space Force as well in the “not boring” department; jury still out on that. Trump would have to win a 2nd term for starters.
NASA actually managed to make a lot of the Apollo program and its precursors pretty boring while it was going on too, not just afterward. Changing that, even in little ways, is one of many reasons why Jim Bridenstine is such a breath of fresh air.
Certainly agree about both Musk and Bezos. Space Force looks like a good bet for some high-profile attention too. And it will be hopelessly intertwingled with what Musk and Bezos are up to as well, given that both will inevitably be doing lots of work for the Space force.
The 2nd Trump term looks to be an increasingly safe bet as time goes along.
Inject colored smoke oil into the exhaust to leave a red, white, and blue trail across the sky.
I recall Armadillo doing some plume seeding experiments back when rocket racing league was a thing – color the plume to match the paint scheme of the rocket. In their videos the result was okay. As a spectator (RRL never got to that point) far away I suspect they’d all look the same.
In other news, Musk got frustrated with lockdowns in liberaltopia and said he’s relocating his HQ to Texas or Nevada. He might as well relocate all his manufacturing, too.
Despite having enjoyed living almost cheek-by-jowl with the Hawthorne Mothership for years, I would certainly understand if SpaceX “lit a shuck and gone to Texas” as the saying once was. Tesla is suddenly looking like going to Nevada with the whole car, not just the batteries. Can’t say the prospect of either thing is especially surprising.
“Bob and Doug get launched into space on a rocket made by a pot-smoking car manufacturer” sounds like the greatest SCTV sketch never made. Yet here we are.
Elon named his child, in effect, OXCART Musk. If that isn’t a glitch in the Matrix I don’t know what is.
BTW is Bill Gerstenmeier still working at SpaceX? Talk about an odd couple. Have a real hard time seeing how Gerst the Worst could fit in there.
Elon has said, over the years, that he had many good conversations about rocket engineering with Gerst when he was still at NASA. Gerst may well be a more-than-merely-competent engineer. And that seems to be the capacity in which SpaceX is using him at present.
Gerst’s ultimate curse was to be promoted well beyond his level of incompetence. SpaceX, wisely, seems to have completely eschewed the idea of letting Gerst run anything.
I can’t find the tweet right now, but after Gerst got fired and everybody and their uncle was praising him for his “heroic” work on commercial crew, Lori Garver shared (Twitter) that Gerst was the most vehement NASA proponent of downselecting to a single provider – an award that surely would have gone to Boeing. I hope SpaceX moves Gerst to the darkest corner of Storage B.
It is similar to the build up to ISS. Then and now, I get bored by the propaganda and rather they just get on with it. Kick the tires and light the fires. Yeah, I know the Falcon doesn’t have a parking break, but when you think about it; parking break is an apt metaphor for NASA.
Very like a movie trailer. But, still more so, very much like a campaign ad. All it lacks, in that respect, is a Jim Bridenstine voice-over at the end identifying himself and saying that he “approves this message.”
And that’s a good thing, in my view. This rapidly approaching mission launch will be a non-trivially big deal after all. A bit of hustings-style tub-thumping in advance is entirely appropriate.
Especially given that most official NASA video tends to have the clunky white-bread earnestness and minimal production values of some forgettable film you were forced to sit through in the elementary school milieu of the mid-20th century. A bit of glitz and flash and a good soundtrack are certainly preferable to the longstanding soporific NASA norm.
One hopes this becomes the new NASA norm, in fact.
And one cannot but think that the aforementioned Administrator Bridenstine is pretty much single-handedly responsible for ordering up this “documentary short film” as the motion picture academy would dub it. As an ex-politico, J.B. certainly appreciates the value of going for the gut in one’s public messaging. It is simply inconceivable that something like this would ever have been produced on the watches of, say, Charlie Bolden or Mike Griffin.
This is a five-finger warm-up. The NASA-SpaceX combination will have much more to promote in similar style over the coming few years. Bring it on, say I.
I like Jim Bridenstine. I think he’s done gone a good job. It’s a bummer he was a casualty of the Democrat/Muslim/Deep State-led Trump Derangement Syndrome wave that delayed the appointment of many positions. He will have done more in 3 years than Charlie Bolden did in 8…and don’t get me started on the big rocket/big state fethisist Griffin (the world would be a better place without him).
I used to regard Griffin the same way. But since standing up SDA and trying to reform defense procurement, I’m inclined to give him credit for having seen the error of his former ways and to now be doing penance.
How effective he will be is another matter. He still seems to be as abrasively monomaniacal and office-politics tone deaf now as he was 20 years ago. I’m just going to keep a hopeful eye on things and hope he can do even half as much good this time around as he did harm on his last tour in government service.
“And that’s a good thing, in my view. This rapidly approaching mission launch will be a non-trivially big deal after all. A bit of hustings-style tub-thumping in advance is entirely appropriate.”
It will be a very big deal.
I also expect a scrub or two on the way due to weather or something else.
But I would rather keep the tub-thumping for after the flight.
A wayward boat would be just our luck!!!
Let it be known that the Coast Guard has authorization to sink any boat that violates the safe zone. Give the Air Force authorization to shoot down any plane that violates the airspace. No, I’m not kidding.
I have no problem with tub-thumping both before and after the flight.
I think that Elon Musk (& possibly Bezos as well) will manage to not make space at all “boring” once they are able to get going big time with what that are intending to do. Even if they have to higher a real later day Don Draper type to sell the public on space. Only a government agency (NASA) after the spectacular success of the lunar landings managed to make space boring to the American public.
Possible contender is Trump’s Space Force as well in the “not boring” department; jury still out on that. Trump would have to win a 2nd term for starters.
NASA actually managed to make a lot of the Apollo program and its precursors pretty boring while it was going on too, not just afterward. Changing that, even in little ways, is one of many reasons why Jim Bridenstine is such a breath of fresh air.
Certainly agree about both Musk and Bezos. Space Force looks like a good bet for some high-profile attention too. And it will be hopelessly intertwingled with what Musk and Bezos are up to as well, given that both will inevitably be doing lots of work for the Space force.
The 2nd Trump term looks to be an increasingly safe bet as time goes along.
Inject colored smoke oil into the exhaust to leave a red, white, and blue trail across the sky.
I recall Armadillo doing some plume seeding experiments back when rocket racing league was a thing – color the plume to match the paint scheme of the rocket. In their videos the result was okay. As a spectator (RRL never got to that point) far away I suspect they’d all look the same.
In other news, Musk got frustrated with lockdowns in liberaltopia and said he’s relocating his HQ to Texas or Nevada. He might as well relocate all his manufacturing, too.
Despite having enjoyed living almost cheek-by-jowl with the Hawthorne Mothership for years, I would certainly understand if SpaceX “lit a shuck and gone to Texas” as the saying once was. Tesla is suddenly looking like going to Nevada with the whole car, not just the batteries. Can’t say the prospect of either thing is especially surprising.
“Bob and Doug get launched into space on a rocket made by a pot-smoking car manufacturer” sounds like the greatest SCTV sketch never made. Yet here we are.
Elon named his child, in effect, OXCART Musk. If that isn’t a glitch in the Matrix I don’t know what is.
BTW is Bill Gerstenmeier still working at SpaceX? Talk about an odd couple. Have a real hard time seeing how Gerst the Worst could fit in there.
Elon has said, over the years, that he had many good conversations about rocket engineering with Gerst when he was still at NASA. Gerst may well be a more-than-merely-competent engineer. And that seems to be the capacity in which SpaceX is using him at present.
Gerst’s ultimate curse was to be promoted well beyond his level of incompetence. SpaceX, wisely, seems to have completely eschewed the idea of letting Gerst run anything.
I can’t find the tweet right now, but after Gerst got fired and everybody and their uncle was praising him for his “heroic” work on commercial crew, Lori Garver shared (Twitter) that Gerst was the most vehement NASA proponent of downselecting to a single provider – an award that surely would have gone to Boeing. I hope SpaceX moves Gerst to the darkest corner of Storage B.