The astronauts like them.
Category Archives: Space
Developing A Vaccine
Yes, we should be doing challenge trials, and let adults decide what they want to do with their bodies. As I noted in the book, how many potential lives might have been saved by being willing to risk ISS crew for medical research?
Elon To SpaceX Employees
“Starship is the top priority.“
I think he feels pretty confident now that his situation with NASA is secure. And it probably is. They really have no choice going forward, at least until Boeing is flying, and even then they will want to have two systems, because they know that the notion of using Orion for ISS support is farcical.
[Update Monday morning]
[Tuesday-afternoon update]
More thoughts and SpaceX news from Bob Zimmerman.
Yes, NASA’s willingness to accept used rockets and capsules is a huge sea change.
[Bumped]
Lunar Safety Zones
An interesting essay by Jessy Kate Schingler.
Shackleton
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.
Peter Thiel
A long but interesting article on how he’s attempting to transform society in an actual useful direction.
Space Force To The Rescue
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.
SN4
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]
Sarah Parcak
I follow her on Twitter, for her occasional bitching about colonialism in space, but this is beyond the pale. It is incitement to destruction.
Yesterday’s Launch
Something to finish the weekend with.
FWIW, Amiko is married to Scott Kelly, who is the Kelly twin who spent a year at ISS.