Sunday, May 28, 2023

Now that Blue Origin has ‘landed’ its second lunar contract, what’s next?

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.

Friday, May 26, 2023

Electricity prices in Finland flipped negative — a huge oversupply of clean, hydroelectric power meant suppliers were almost giving it away
Space Force’s New Mission Statement: Time To Inform and Inspire

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.

Children of Apollo: What if we never stopped going to the moon?

Sunday, May 21, 2023

Vast and SpaceX are heating up the growing commercial space station race

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

Last night I watched Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which is still at the theaters, is live streaming on Paramount +, and will be on Blue Ray and DVD at the end of the month. I enjoyed the film immensely, not only for its action and suspense, with all the great tropes of the fantasy genre, but of the depiction of the hero’s journey (though perhaps anti-hero’s journey may be a better description) of Edgin, played by the great action hero Chris Pine. It also stars Michelle Rodriquez as his barbarian warrior sidekick/friend and Hugh Grant as the smarmy villain. I cannot recommend the film enough.
My knowledge of advertising begins and ends with old episodes of Mad Men. But I can see Don Draper, looking at the disaster of first Bud Light and now Miller Light, taking a drag from a cigarette and then asking, "What?"

Monday, May 15, 2023

SpaceX hires former NASA human spaceflight official Kathy Lueders to help with Starship

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

Will environmentalists derail the Artemis’ return to the moon?

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.

Children of Apollo: What if we had never stopped going to the Moon?
The Moon, Mars, and Beyond: Two Tales from the Coming Space Age
Latest Tucker Leak: “If you’ve got pronouns in your Twitter bio, you shouldn’t work here because we can’t trust you because you’re on the other side” Also Tucker Taking His Show To Twitter
Venture Capitalists Should Bet on America: Washington can cooperate with the private sector. Elon Musk’s SpaceX showed the way.
Americans agree on something: returning to the Moon and shooting for Mars

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.

The Moon, Mars and Beyond: Tales of the Coming Space Age
Why is America Going Back to the Moon?: After over 50 years, human beings are returning to the moon. How did that happen?
Gabriella's Holy War: The Vampire Gabriella rises from the ruins of the World Trade Center to do battle in the War on Terror.
Gabriella's War: Vampire vs Nazi vampire hunter