An interesting history of why the best Star Trek movie ever made wasn’t a bigger hit.
[Afternoon update]
Now that I’ve read the whole thing, I’d like to see a director’s cut with the missing Rickman scenes, and get Weaver to dub in the right word.
Category Archives: Space
A Water-Eating Virus
…from Maaaaars.
A truly dumb article, disappointing from Quillette.
February, Or March
That’s the goal for first flight of the Mark 3 Spaceship.
Holiday Break
I’m a little burned out on blogging, so I’m taking a few days off. Be good in comments.
[Update Monday morning]
OK, this is somewhat urgent, so a break from the break: Only two days left to support The Space Show on the year-end fundraiser.
Boeing’s Annus Horribilis
…continues with today’s failure of Starliner to get to the ISS. Stories from Eric Berger , Marina Koren, and Tim Fernholz.
The question is whether or not they’ll insist on another uncrewed test flight before putting in crew. Given the cost of an Atlas V, I’d be inclined to say no, given that this failure wouldn’t have resulted in loss of crew. Worst case for a crewed flight would be failure to dock, which would just mean a mission abort back to White Sands. But as we all know, SAFETY IS THE HIGHEST PRIORITY.
[Late-morning update]
Loren Grush has another take.
[Update mid-afternoon]
Here’s a story from Emilee Speck in Orlando.
The GAO On Artemis
A nice Christmas present from them to those of us who have to analyze this stuff. Not sure when I’ll actually get around to reading it, but it can’t be pretty.
A Setback For Space Traffic Management
This is not great news. I don’t understand why Ross hasn’t gone to Congress, but I also don’t understand how he thought he was going to get the funding without doing so.
Ankylosing Spondylitis
Wow. This guy had to have his spine broken in four places to be able to straighten up. Mars researcher Tanya Harrison suffers from this disease (and I’m always impressed by her accomplishments despite it). I hope they can come up with a cure eventually, if not sooner.
Boris Johnson’s Revolution
Thoughts from Michael Barone.
I’m encouraged that he wants to emphasize science and technology. This could create some useful Anglospheric alliances in space, particularly if he sets up a Royal Space Force.
[Update a few minutes later]
He’s going after the Beeb. That would be amazing if he could get rid of that pack of leftist hacks.
[Wednesday-morning update]
“Advanced Space Technologies”
An interesting article on General Kwast (who reportedly has people read my book), but isn’t it obvious that he’s talking about things like Starship? Nothing magical or secret here.