We watched a documentary about the expedition last night. I was struck for the first time by the parallels with Apollo 13: A near disaster from which they recovered only through ingenuity and endurance (the ship was aptly named).
I only mentioned him in the book in terms of the probably apocryphal ad in the Times of London. If I ever do a new edition, I’ll probably talk more about that, as I did with Magellan.
A long but interesting article on how he’s attempting to transform society in an actual useful direction.
This is the sort of thing that should be done with a Space Guard, not a Space Force. Of course, if Starship happens, it will be moot.
Elon explains.
So it was a GSE problem, and had nothing to do with the vehicle-design itself, which seems like good news.
[Update a while later]
It’s been a decade since the first Falcon 9 flight. They’ve come quite a ways.
[Thursday-morning update]
SpaceX says that a first orbital flight could still happen this year.
[Bumped]
I follow her on Twitter, for her occasional bitching about colonialism in space, but this is beyond the pale. It is incitement to destruction.
Something to finish the weekend with.
FWIW, Amiko is married to Scott Kelly, who is the Kelly twin who spent a year at ISS.
…returns human spaceflight to America (and southern California).
I’m glad this is happening, but it should have happened years ago.
[Update just before launch time]
Welp, I guess they’ll try again Saturday. Florida weather.
[Thursday-morning update]
American spaceflight is now in Elon Musk’s hands.
[Bumped]
[Saturday-afternoon (in Florida) update]
Trying again in less than an hour.
[Bumped again]
[Update after the launch]
Looks like everything went perfectly, with weather cooperating in the last hour. On orbit now, and heading for a rendezvous with ISS tomorrow morning. Vodkapundit live blogged it.
[Update a few minutes later]
Another report from Emilee Speck.
[Sunday-morning update]
And, they’re docked. They named the ship Endeavour. Jonathan O’Callaghan has the story.
It went kablooie in the static test today. Video anon.
[Update a few minutes later]
It appears to be an earth-shattering kaboom.
Not sure why there’s no audio, but I assume it was loud. Presumably no one was hurt; Mary was reportedly quite a ways away when she took this. Starhopper looks OK, but we’ll hear more soon. I was watching the live stream; it seems to be still burning. One of the benefits of stainless is that it’s cheap, compared to carbon composite.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s before and after.
[Update a while later]
Loren Grush has the story.
[Update a few minutes later]
And here’s Eric Berger’s story.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Worth noting, as Eric does, that the static test was successful, FWIW. So this is the biggest advance they’ve made yet on the SN series. Next challenge is to do a static test without an explosion afterward.
[Saturday-morning update]
Here’s one with audio. Note the delay due to the distance. Has to be over half a mile away.
[Update a few minutes later]
An article about the safety of the system, with a quote from Leroy Chiao: “Chiao said pushing too hard for safer numbers could cause a spaceflight program to spiral into never launching at all.”
You don’t say.
This just in.
No word yet if they terminated before or after ignition.
What causes some to transmit the disease more than others?
[Update a few minutes later]
The immune system may have a unique response to the coronavirus (also an interesting description of how viruses work).