Dwayne Day doesn’t believe in “Blackstar”:

it turns out that the atomic-powered bomber never existed, and the plane was never

Want to watch a rocket blow up on the pad, at night (warning: about a hundred-megabyte wmv file)? I’ve never heard so much cursing in such colorful European accents. It happened three and a half years ago at Plesetsk, in Russia. Here’s the story.

[Via Jim Oberg]

A test flight of the X-37 was postponed for snow. There are some beautiful, and rare shots of the phenomenon in the high desert and the Tehachapis over at the Mojave weblog.

I wonder how good the poppies will be this year? So far, it doesn’t look good.

[Via Clark Lindsey]

The news is coming fast from from SpaceX and Musk.

• Keith Cowing told us about Dragon on March 6.
• Alan Boyle asked one of the questions I wanted to ask him, “Do you talk to Jeff Bezos?” Yes occasionally. “Musk … will probably seek outside funding once the company has a few successful launches under its belt.”
• Jon Goff’s supposition that Dragon development has not require more than $100 million founder funding was confirmed with Musk by Boyle

Makes my interview (part 1 and 2) of Dianne Molina, Marketing Manager at SpaceX just the tip of the iceberg.

The news is coming fast from from SpaceX and Musk.

• Keith Cowing told us about Dragon on March 6.
• Alan Boyle asked one of the questions I wanted to ask him, “Do you talk to Jeff Bezos?” Yes occasionally. “Musk … will probably seek outside funding once the company has a few successful launches under its belt.”
• Jon Goff’s supposition that Dragon development has not require more than $100 million founder funding was confirmed with Musk by Boyle

Makes my interview (part 1 and 2) of Dianne Molina, Marketing Manager at SpaceX just the tip of the iceberg.

The news is coming fast from from SpaceX and Musk.

• Keith Cowing told us about Dragon on March 6.
• Alan Boyle asked one of the questions I wanted to ask him, “Do you talk to Jeff Bezos?” Yes occasionally. “Musk … will probably seek outside funding once the company has a few successful launches under its belt.”
• Jon Goff’s supposition that Dragon development has not require more than $100 million founder funding was confirmed with Musk by Boyle

Makes my interview (part 1 and 2) of Dianne Molina, Marketing Manager at SpaceX just the tip of the iceberg.

I’ve got a lot of work to do today, and then I’m heading home on a red eye tonight. In the meantime, lots of interesting stuff over at Clark Lindsey’s place.

…if you’re in the Salt Lake City area today. Scott Lowther writes:

If you’re in the Salt Lake area tomorrow, come see the RSRM firing at ATK-Thiokol., scheduled for 1 PM. I’ve seen two… impressive as all get-out. Plus, it brings in every bald eagle for forty miles.

Why the eagles?

The two theories that do make a measure of sense to me are:

1) Some form of curiousity at the *extremely* loud noise with the very low tones.

2) The ground vibrations that are set up *may* cause subsurface critters for miles around to come boiling out… rats, mice, voles, snakes, etc, and the eagles have learned there are easy meals to be had when that particular dinner bell rings.

[Update late morning[

Where in the heck did the phrase “all get-out” come from, anyway. What does that mean?

Fred Kiesche asks if we can keep politics out of the CEV program.

Sorry, but politics intruded as soon as Dr. Griffin decided to build Shuttle-derived hardware as the launch vehicles, in order to assuage the politicians in Alabama, Utah and Florida who were worried about the loss of Shuttle jobs. Politics intruded with the decision to complete the useless (or at least, very poor value for the money) ISS, to maintain the international commitments.

It’s completely unrealistic to expect a massive taxpayer-funded space bureaucracy to be unencumbered by politics.

A requiem for a space dog, from Henry Vanderbilt:

Continue reading RIP, Rufo →