It’s been a crazy week, at Space Tech Expo in Anaheim on Wednesday and Thursday, then a red eye to DC on Thursday night, and no sleep until last night. On top of that, I failed to pack my keyboard with my laptop, which in addition to being a laptop, has several wonky keys, including “e,” so it’s quite tedious to type on it. So between that and busy at ISDC, probably not much posting until I’m back in the office on Tuesday.
Category Archives: Space
Whoa!
Sound synchronized from @NASASpaceflight footage pic.twitter.com/EWr9t8iegP
— Scott Manley (@DJSnM) May 29, 2026
This, on a static fire, is a major setback for commercial space in general, and Blue Origin in particular. More anon.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Eric Berger has the latest.
It strikes me a that this may have been a demonstration of the recently discovered explosive potential of LOX/methane, which Dugway tests showed was equivalent to TNT.
Silver lining: The Space Force just got good data on methane exclusion zones.
— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) May 29, 2026
[Friday-morning update]
Stephen Green has the latest at PJMedia.
We’ll see how fast they can recover, but it certainly puts more pressure on SpaceX to get through their mishap investigation and get back to testing.
[Update a while later]
WOW! Remarkable video from 5 miles from the launch pad in Jetty Park. Watch that fireball, and listen around 35 seconds into the video for the massive audible explosion.
— Noah Bergren (@NbergWX) May 29, 2026
📸: John Concilus pic.twitter.com/5Ow9Q6Dd3L
Blue Origin just vaporized a rocket, a launch pad, and Amazon's entire satellite deployment timeline in nine seconds.
— Aakash Gupta (@aakashgupta) May 29, 2026
NG-4 was supposed to fly June 4 carrying 48 Amazon Leo satellites. That mission was the first of 24 contracted Blue Origin launches Amazon needs to build its… https://t.co/Pz2Su6925C
I clipped this from the old 1985 PBS documentary Space Flight. About four minutes. Worth the watch, not just for the footage of the rocket failures, but especially for German engineer Krafft Ehricke's explanation on why the first ballistic missile of the modern age was such a… pic.twitter.com/NlbVileszT
— Brad R. Torgersen (@BradRTorgersen) May 29, 2026
I knew Krafft when I was at Rockwell, because we had him on retainer as a consultant.
[Early-afternoon update]
Eric Berger: Why last night’s event was so catastrophic.
It’s sure a headache for Jared. At this point, Gwynne Shotwell is more important to American space activities than either the NASA administrator or General Saltzman.
[Update a few minutes later]
An aerial survey of the damage:
There's a lot to unpack with LC-36 since New Glenn's explosion last night, so here's a thread on everything I saw from the air this morning:
— Asher B. (@asherbphotos) May 29, 2026
📸 – @LaunchHeavenX https://t.co/gri5w4j3xg pic.twitter.com/ctWtNeVk8a
How Did Version 3 Do?
An interesting video:
Now that Starship Flight 12 is completed, how did the new V3 Booster performance compare to the older Flight 11 V2 Booster and did the redesign, higher TWR and flight path management really make a big difference?
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) May 28, 2026
I thought we would look at one aspect of the Booster design to… pic.twitter.com/warED6lfmH
Unsurprisingly, the FAA is going to require a mishap investigation before the next flight, but SpaceX is certainly already engaged in it.
Best Practices
I’m sure you’ll be as unsurprised as I am that when it comes to managing upper stages, China is not following them.
[Update a few minutes later]
Maybe we should make a “Hungry Hippo” version of Starship one day to collect and de-orbit spent rocket stages and other space junk
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 26, 2026
Scrub
Well, better luck tomorrow. I’ll be on a plane from DC to LA, or maybe on layover in Philly, but I might be able to see it on my tablet on the plane.
“Starship Is Going Nowhere”
I gave up on this Elon-deranged nonsense after the paragraph in which he demonstrated his profound ignorance of orbital mechanics and the rocket equation, because I’m at an AIAA conference all week and don’t have time to properly fisk it, but have at it in comments.
Blue Origin’s Finances
It seems to me that Bezos could solve this problem on his own, but maybe he’s tired of financing it all himself if he can find Other Peoples’ Money.
SpaceX’s Louisiana Purchase
Interesting blog post from Chris Stelter over at Goff’s site.
If methalox in LEO is less than $5/lbm, that means it can be less than $10 in EML-1, which makes lunar trips very cheap.
May 19th
That’s the target date for the next Starship test, according to an email invitation to set up cameras. I’ll be at ASCEND in DC.
Captain Kelly Strikes Again
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