The Economist has discovered El Segundo, including its history with SpaceX. It’s a primary reason I haven’t abandoned California yet.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
The Foresight Meme Prize
I saw this at Vision Weekend a week and a half ago.
Announcing: the winner of our $10K Meme Prize!
— Existential Hope (@HopeExistential) December 18, 2025
After reviewing almost 400 entries, we are thrilled to share that the winner of our Meme Prize is “Voices from 2099” by @JellyfishDAO! Their short video makes us see the present day through the eyes of a future society that has… pic.twitter.com/PsxrO1uPPi
Moving Forward
NASA may have a new Administrator as soon as Monday or Tuesday of next week. https://t.co/2aDdcaJMJa
— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) December 11, 2025
[Saturday-morning update]
The Empire strikes back.
One of the last people whose opinions I have any respect for in such matters is Doug Cooke. His and Mike’s porkfest is what got us here. I may fisk this later.
[Wednesday-afternoon update]
Confirmed, 67-30: Confirmation of Executive Calendar #593 Jared Isaacman to be Administrator of the @NASA.
— Senate Cloakroom (@SenateCloakroom) December 17, 2025
[Bumped]
122 Years
The Wrights first flew powered aircraft at Kitty Hawk. I wrote about it on the hundredth anniversary. Unfortunately, both the Fox News piece and the TechCentralStation piece have succombed to link rot, but the National Review piece can be found in the Wayback Machine. I’ll do a search to see if I can find the other two. Doing three separate pieces in a single day on different aspects of the event was sort of a tour de force of my early blogging days.
[Update a few minutes later]
Well, Grok can’t find them. I should have made copies when they were still available. They may be lost to history.
[Late-afternoon update]
Thanks to commenter Douglas McKinnie, who dug them up. Here is the TechCentralStation piece, and this is the Fox News one. Note that, with regard to the latter, it was written shortly after SpaceX had been founded, but years before their first flight. But they followed my recommended path.
[Late-evening update]
Sorry, TCS link was bad, fixed now.
John Varley
RIP.
I didn’t read everything he wrote, but Millenium was good.
An AI-Powered Bionic Hand
If it works in vacuum, this might be a solution to the glove problem with space suits.
The SpaceX IPO
Why is Elon doing it?
Anticipating Starship
Since it came out, I’ve been saying that the decadal needs to be completely redone, as it assumes business as usual. But there’s a new report out from academics on how to use Starship for Mars exploration, so people are finally starting to get it. Bob Zimmerman summarizes.
A Holiday Warning
Nothing to see here…but remember, the greatest threat is from white supremacists!
[Update a few minutes later]
Prepare for the coming storm. All LEOs should read this. Let’s hope that Kurt Schlichter wasn’t prescient with his novels.
Off The Air
Driving up to the Bay Area for the Foresight Vision Weekend. We’ll be driving back down Monday. I’ll have the laptop with me, but don’t know if I’ll have much time for blogging. So comments are open.