Category Archives: Technology and Society

Business, Space, Technology and Society

Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!

34 Comments

OK, not tomorrow, but next Sunday, for the next Starship attempt.

[Monday-morning update

Stephen Clark has the story on what went wrong on previous flights, and what they’ve done to prevent a recurrence.

But I have no idea what the phrase “human-rated lander” means.

[Sunday-afternoon update]

Less than two hours to go, weather permitting.

[Bumped]

[Tuesday-morning update]

Third time’s the charm?

[Mid-morning update]

[Bumped]

[Afternoon update]

Here‘s the report from SpaceX itself.

[Thursday-morning update]

Plans for the near future:

Versions 1 and 2 were proof of concept; versions 3 and 4 will be the operational ones.

[Update early afternoon]

[Update a few minutes later]

Don’t anthromorphize spaceships; they hate when you do that.

Business, Economics, Space, Technology and Society

At Smallsat

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This is my first trip to this venerable conference, which for decades was held in Logan, UT, where the university there, Utah State, was a hotbed of this developing technology as a result of innovative faculty. This year it’s at the convention center in Salt Lake City, and it’s huge, as would befit this burgeoning industry. There’s a cavernous exhibit hall with hundreds of exhibitors.

My concern is that the industry may be in a bubble. I’m seeing several vendors for some of the technologies, and it’s not clear to me that they’ll all survive, or how they’ll compete. But that’s the dynamic nature of new tech.