Thoughts from Eric Berger on Sean Duffy’s additional job.
Unlike many on this platform, speaking as a space-policy expert, I have no idea whether it will hurt NASA to lose those 2000+ GS13-GS15 "senior executives," or if Duffy will be able to provide any more "leadership" than Janet Petro. I simply know too little about who they are.
— Rand Simberg (@Simberg_Space) July 10, 2025
[Afternoon update]
Speaking of interim administrators, here’s an interesting interview with Jared Isaacman.
Three long-shot ways of solving it. One of them is space.
I’m heading off to Orlando for the International Space Development Conference. I’ll check in from there.
Ignoring the dumb headline, Joel Kotkin has an interesting story on the new tech hub in the South Bay. I helped set up some of the plant visits for it.
I generally avoid the city. The South Bay, with the resurgence of the space industry and many start ups, remains in better shape.
[Update late morning]
LA 2025: Welcome to America’s future.
I hope not.
Beyond the Trump-Musk fallout?
— Victor Davis Hanson (@VDHanson) June 6, 2025
At first impression, it makes no sense that Musk would start firing away at the (admittedly imperfect) budget bill, or escalate to DefCon 1, by tweeting nonsense about impeachment, the Epstein files, or disengaging his space efforts from the U.S.…
Assuming that Trump is serious, wait until he hears that there's no Golden Dome or Mars without SpaceX.
— Not-So-OK Boomer (@Rand_Simberg) June 5, 2025
[Saturday-evening update]
Sorry about the formatting issues. I’m trying to get used to the WordPress update, which munged everything up in terms of how I post. Among other things, it made it a lot more effort to insert HTML.
It’s time for NASA to get out of the launch business.
I’ve only been saying this for over two decades.
Don’t read the comments, though.
[Tuesday-morning update]
Bob Zimmerman is very encouraged about the future of America in space.
Light posting today if at all, because I’ll be at the Space Tech Expo in Long Beach all day.
[Thursday-morning update]
Bob has a follow up post. I do think the proposal to reduce crew size on the ISS is penny-wise pound-foolish.
Bob Zimmerman has it, and summarizes.
With approval for another flight as early as next week, SpaceX has released a report on what happened on the last two flights, and what they’ve done to prevent a repeat of either.
[Tuesday-morning update]
For those with X, Elon is about to talk about getting multi-planetary, as a prelude to this afternoon’s launch attempt. For the Xless, just go to SpaceX.com.
[Update a few minutes later]
It just changed the start time from 1015 PDT to 1800. So after the flight, instead of before?
FAA has approved Starship’s return to flight. pic.twitter.com/NtxV5TY9jz
— Marcia Smith (@SpcPlcyOnline) May 22, 2025