It may be a vascular disease.
That would explain a lot. We’ve been comparing it to the flu, but it’s not a good comparison.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
SpaceX
…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.
So Much For SN4
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.
Trump’s Executive Order
It probably won’t stand up in court.
But amending 230 is something that might get bipartisan support in Congress.
The Obamagate Scandals
LauncherOne
This just in.
No word yet if they terminated before or after ignition.
The Great War
An interesting review of an old book, in the context of current times.
Epidemiological Models
The real problem with the goes beyond bad code (as is the case with climate).
NASA’s Move To Commercial Space
…has saved money. A history of how it happened, including an idiotic quote from Scott Horowitz, who I consider to be corrupt. The IG should have never allowed that revolving door. It was an obvious conflict of interest.
[Friday-morning update]
Related (sort of): An interesting interview with Elon Musk.
The Artemis Accords
One small step for space law. This is a pretty good overview of the legal situation.