When I saw the headline, I wondered where in LA it was. But the hed is wrong; Redlands is nowhere near LA. It’s east of San Bernardino.
It does look suspicious, though.
Category Archives: Business
Peter Thiel
A long but interesting article on how he’s attempting to transform society in an actual useful direction.
The Protests
…expose lock downs and social distancing as a farce.
Perhaps the greatest mistake in human history.
Climate Versus Covid Models
Cloudy with a chance of politics.
More than a chance.
Space Force To The Rescue
This is the sort of thing that should be done with a Space Guard, not a Space Force. Of course, if Starship happens, it will be moot.
SN4
Elon explains.
So it was a GSE problem, and had nothing to do with the vehicle-design itself, which seems like good news.
[Update a while later]
It’s been a decade since the first Falcon 9 flight. They’ve come quite a ways.
[Thursday-morning update]
SpaceX says that a first orbital flight could still happen this year.
[Bumped]
The “Public-Health Emergency”
At this point, it’s impossible to take lock-down orders seriously.
The Latest On Masks
The New England Journal of Medicine says that wearing them outside medical facilities offers little protection.
SpaceX
…returns human spaceflight to America (and southern California).
I’m glad this is happening, but it should have happened years ago.
[Update just before launch time]
Welp, I guess they’ll try again Saturday. Florida weather.
[Thursday-morning update]
American spaceflight is now in Elon Musk’s hands.
[Bumped]
[Saturday-afternoon (in Florida) update]
Trying again in less than an hour.
[Bumped again]
[Update after the launch]
Looks like everything went perfectly, with weather cooperating in the last hour. On orbit now, and heading for a rendezvous with ISS tomorrow morning. Vodkapundit live blogged it.
[Update a few minutes later]
Another report from Emilee Speck.
[Sunday-morning update]
And, they’re docked. They named the ship Endeavour. Jonathan O’Callaghan has the story.
So Much For SN4
It went kablooie in the static test today. Video anon.
[Update a few minutes later]
It appears to be an earth-shattering kaboom.
Not sure why there’s no audio, but I assume it was loud. Presumably no one was hurt; Mary was reportedly quite a ways away when she took this. Starhopper looks OK, but we’ll hear more soon. I was watching the live stream; it seems to be still burning. One of the benefits of stainless is that it’s cheap, compared to carbon composite.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s before and after.
[Update a while later]
Loren Grush has the story.
[Update a few minutes later]
And here’s Eric Berger’s story.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Worth noting, as Eric does, that the static test was successful, FWIW. So this is the biggest advance they’ve made yet on the SN series. Next challenge is to do a static test without an explosion afterward.
[Saturday-morning update]
Here’s one with audio. Note the delay due to the distance. Has to be over half a mile away.
[Update a few minutes later]
An article about the safety of the system, with a quote from Leroy Chiao: “Chiao said pushing too hard for safer numbers could cause a spaceflight program to spiral into never launching at all.”
You don’t say.