I hope that he is charged with revealing classified information.
Kelly is turning out to be the worst former astronaut in history, I think. Hard to think of anyone worse. https://t.co/MQMzoTKlDk
— Not-So-OK Boomer (@Rand_Simberg) May 12, 2026
Category Archives: Space
Cowboy
Aetherflux has rebranded from a space power company to a launch company, dedicated to its own satellites.
Engineering Lessons From Elon
Elon explains how to build anything with first principles pic.twitter.com/DTBuEfazi7
— TaraBull (@TaraBull) May 9, 2026
I’m working on a lunar skycrane project, and doing a trade on how/when to unreel/reel the tether, but I’m thinking about simplifying by simply making it fixed length.
Falcon 9
It was an historic rocket, but its successor will be much more so.
The Latest From Jared
I understand some in the community have an affinity for specific hardware, but the focus should be on outcomes. With respect to SLS, the desired outcome is launching crewed Orion spacecraft at a reasonable cadence, rebuilding muscle memory, and buying down risk so we can land…
— Jared Isaacman (@rookisaacman) April 17, 2026
[Mid-morning update]
An interesting interview with him.
[Noon update]
ICYMI, from Jared’s X post: “I do not want to throw away billions of taxpayer dollars, and time we do not have, on a flavor of a rocket that is not necessary to return astronauts to the moon.”
[Thursday-afternoon update]
Bob Zimmerman has thoughts on his Congressional hearing.
[Bumped]
Launch Industry Woes
The only company currently performing is SpaceX.
And then we have the suit problem (that I talked about in my Reason study last year). But Eric Berger seems sanguine about it:
People often say there's no difference between "new" space and "traditional" space. Not true, and we've seen that play out with this spacesuit contract. Axiom has no guarantees it will ultimately profit on its fixed price suit contract with NASA. It could lose big time. But the…
— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) April 21, 2026
[Afternoon update]
I left Rockwell a third of a century ago when it became very clear that, despite being the prime contractor on the Shuttle, they didn't see themselves as being in the space business. They were in the government-contracting business.
— Rand Simberg (@Simberg_Space) April 21, 2026
Future Scarcity
An interesting discussion on the implications of AI and robots. Read the whole thread.
Maybe unpopular opinion? I think an age of abundance via AI might cause more war instead of less, because the value of land on earth will trend toward infinity (there is finite land on earth), while the cost of creating robot armies to fight over it will trend toward zero.
— Phil Metzger (@DrPhiltill) April 18, 2026
Jeff Greason
I haven’t listened yet (it’s a two-hour interview), but I’m sure it’s interesting:
This has gone live now. Wide ranging; how I got in the field, what worthy goals are for the space enterprise, some of what we need, and of course, advanced propulsion. Gets a little emotional in spots. And 2 hours long ….https://t.co/CyO6dZPone
— Jeff Greason (@JeffGreason) April 16, 2026
Thanks to @tmro https://t.co/iIdePreSGP
ULA’s Woes
I’m starting to wonder how long they’ll survive. With Blue Origin finally flying (if still at low rates) and other providers coming on line, maybe it doesn’t matter.
Project Hail Mary
We saw it a week ago and, while it was a good movie, I wasn’t as blown away by it as many seem to have been. But Matt Shapiro thought it was great.