Random thoughts on politics, current events, popular culture, and whatever else interests me.
Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
Monday, May 29, 2023
Sunday, May 28, 2023
NASA recently announced that the “national team,” led by Blue Origin and including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Astrobotic and Honeybee Robotics, will construct and operate the second human landing system (HLS), according to Ars Technica. The Blue Moon, as the new HLS is called, is slated to serve on the Artemis V mission, scheduled for the late 2020s or early 2030s.
Saturday, May 27, 2023
Friday, May 26, 2023
Thursday, May 25, 2023
Wednesday, May 24, 2023
Tuesday, May 23, 2023
Keeping in mind that the Space Force’s current mission statement lacks clarity, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman is crowd-sourcing ideas among the service’s guardians to develop a new Space Force mission statement that more clearly defines why the service branch exists.
Monday, May 22, 2023
Not to mention Rome the Series
/P>
Sunday, May 21, 2023
Besides landing astronauts on the lunar surface in a few years, NASA is faced with the problem of how to replace the International Space Station once it reaches the end of its operational life around 2030. Toward that end, the space agency has signed funded Space Act Agreements with three companies, Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman and Voyager Space, to start design work on commercial space stations. NASA has made an agreement with a fourth company, Axiom Space, to install commercial modules on the ISS as a precursor to its own orbiting space facility.
But now a fifth company, called Vast, has stolen a march on its competitors and has signed an agreement with SpaceX to launch a single-module commercial space station by August 2025, according to Space News. Vast is getting no direct help from NASA.
Saturday, May 20, 2023
Friday, May 19, 2023
Thursday, May 18, 2023
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
Tuesday, May 16, 2023
Monday, May 15, 2023
In my opinion, a home run hire. Lueders made commercial space work at NASA and is one of the three people who convinced me that the concept had evolved from hype to reality.
Some background: Kathy Lueders quietly made history at NASA — now she’s retiring
Sunday, May 14, 2023
Along with the technical challenges SpaceX’s Elon Musk faces getting his Starship rocket operational, he has to deal with the environmental regulators who must approve everything, since the Starbase launch facility sits in the middle of a wildlife preserve. Recently, the Federal Aviation Administration finally granted SpaceX a launch license.
Now, after the first test of the Starship, a coalition of environmental organizations has sued the FAA in a Washington D.C, district court to stop any subsequent launch tests, pending a full-scale environmental impact study, according to Ars Technica.
Saturday, May 13, 2023
Friday, May 12, 2023
Thursday, May 11, 2023
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
Tuesday, May 09, 2023
Monday, May 08, 2023
Sunday, May 07, 2023
What do Americans think about going back to the moon and on to Mars? A recent YouGov poll has some very good news for supporters of expanding human civilization to the moon, Mars and beyond.