This is an excellent question. Will keep you posted. Inside rumors point to September 1st at this time.
— Rocket Ranch StarBase (@RocketRanchTX) August 16, 2022
Category Archives: Space
Countdown To Controversy
Leonard David has a roundup of space analysts’ opinions about SLS, with a lead off from Yours Truly.
My Space Podcast
I did this with Marshall and Joel a few weeks ago.
Progress In Boca Chica
There has been a static fire of a Superheavy for the first time.
[Update a couple minutes later]
A discussion of the differences between Raptor 1 and Raptor 2. Visually, I’m impressed by the apparent reduction in hardware and complexity of the power head.
“A Niche Part Of The Market”
Peter Beck explains the low flight rate of Electron.
There are many more small launchers than there is demand for them. And if my idea about equatorial LEO happens (and I think it’s inevitable), there will be no market for them at all.
[Tuesday-morning update]
I’m both fascinated and amused at the degree to which intelligent commenters are having difficulty wrapping their heads around the ELEO concept.
Astra News
In the face of multiple failures, the company is changing its strategy.
I bought a bunch of November calls on ASTR at fourteen bucks each as lottery tickets after the most recent failure, when the stock price fell to a buck and a half, on the hope that the next launch this summer would be successful. Now they may expire worthless, and I’ll lose about three hundred bucks. But November is still three months away, and the stock could still rally on news.
Nichelle Nichols
RIP.
Bad Newspace News
Masten was an alumni factory, resulting in a lot of other innovative companies. They were arguably the progenitor to SpaceX’s success at reusability. I hope they’ll be able to restructure.
James Lovelock
RIP.
To the degree that one agrees with the Gaia hypothesis, space settlers would be helping it reproduce.
An Interesting Precedent
…for lunar resource utilization. I hadn’t heard of the Breaking Ground Trust, but we’ll see where this goes.