Obama recently appeared at a renewable energy conference in Paris and had some sharp words about billionaires, especially Elon Musk, and efforts by his SpaceX company to colonize space.
Random thoughts on politics, current events, popular culture, and whatever else interests me.
Sunday, March 31, 2024
Saturday, March 30, 2024
Friday, March 29, 2024
Thursday, March 28, 2024
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Hamas blew off his arm, fellow IDF soldiers mistook him for enemy —now combat medic gets state-of-the art robotic prosthetic in NYC: ‘I will have a normal life’
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
The Galveston Bay Park Plan: Rapid Hurricane Protection and Long-Term Economic Stability for Galveston Ba
Monday, March 25, 2024
Sunday, March 24, 2024
SpaceX Starship’s third flight was not only a success, it was awesome
The recent third test launch of the SpaceX Starship was not only noted for the successful milestones it achieved but also its awe-inspiring effect on people who observed it, either remotely via live streaming or in person, at the Star Base facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
Saturday, March 23, 2024
Friday, March 22, 2024
Thursday, March 21, 2024
For all of you who think that cannibalism has been given a bad rap. To Serve Man: A Cookbook for People #CommissionEarned
Biden’s EV Mandate Blows Its Cover: The EPA’s new tailpipe emissions rule is a plan to eliminate gas-powered cars.
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Monday, March 18, 2024
Daily Oral Contraceptive, Birth Control Pill, Full Prescription Strength, No Prescription Needed #CommissionEarned
Sunday, March 17, 2024
Biden’s tax proposals would hurt commercial space
One of the little-noted facts of modern American politics is how much space, NASA and the military are not partisan political issues.
Shortly after he took office, President Joe Biden indicated that he would continue both Project Artemis, the program to send astronauts back to the moon and eventually Mars, and the Space Force, the new military branch charged with operating in space. Since President Donald Trump started both Artemis and the Space Force, Biden’s decision to retain them was met with surprise and delight by many.
However, President Biden differs from his predecessor and potential successor in one policy that could affect the commercial space sector adversely. Whereas Trump favors tax cuts, the better to stimulate economic growth and job creation, Biden supports a soak-the-rich policy that he claims will address the deficit and restore “fairness” to the tax code.
Saturday, March 16, 2024
STARSHIP'S THIRD FLIGHT TEST
Starship returned to integrated flight testing with its third launch from Starbase in Texas. While it didn’t happen in a lab or on a test stand, it was absolutely a test. What we achieved on this flight will provide invaluable data to continue rapidly developing Starship.
On March 14, 2024, Starship successfully lifted off at 8:25 a.m. CT from Starbase in Texas and went on to accomplish several major milestones and firsts:
For the second time, all 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy Booster started up successfully and completed a full-duration burn during ascent.
Starship executed its second successful hot-stage separation, powering down all but three of Super Heavy’s Raptor engines and successfully igniting the six second stage Raptor engines before separating the vehicles.
Following separation, the Super Heavy booster successfully completed its flip maneuver and completed a full boostback burn to send it towards its splashdown point in the Gulf of Mexico.
Super Heavy successfully lit several engines for its first ever landing burn before the vehicle experienced a RUD (that’s SpaceX-speak for “rapid unscheduled disassembly”). The booster’s flight concluded at approximately 462 meters in altitude and just under seven minutes into the mission.
Starship's six second stage Raptor engines all started successfully and powered the vehicle to its expected orbit, becoming the first Starship to complete its full-duration ascent burn.
While coasting, Starship accomplished several of the flight test’s additional objectives, including the opening and closing of its payload door (aka the pez dispenser,) and initiating a propellant transfer demonstration. Starship did not attempt its planned on-orbit relight of a single Raptor engine due to vehicle roll rates during coast. Results from these demonstrations will come after postflight data review is complete.
Starship went on to experience its first ever entry from space, providing valuable data on heating and vehicle control during hypersonic reentry. Live views of entry were made possible by Starlink terminals operating on Starship.
The flight test’s conclusion came during entry, with the last telemetry signals received via Starlink from Starship at approximately 49 minutes into the mission.
While our team reviews the data collected from this flight, Starship and Super Heavy vehicles are preparing for upcoming flights as we seek to increase our launch cadence throughout the year.
Friday, March 15, 2024
Thursday, March 14, 2024
Biden Can Shout, but He’s No Truman: More important, Trump is no Dewey. There won’t be a 1948-style comeback.
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Monday, March 11, 2024
Alien-looking dome home commissioned by NASA gets put on the market: 'A shelter using the most stable of all the architectural elements'
Sunday, March 10, 2024
Richard Truly and the death of the Space Exploration Initiative
Adm. Richard Truly, former astronaut and NASA administrator, recently passed away at the age of 86.
His death has been met with accolades for his accomplishments as a naval aviator and astronaut. But his term as NASA administrator during George H. W. Bush’s presidency was fraught with controversy. Truly was the only NASA chief to have been fired by the president who appointed him.
Saturday, March 09, 2024
Gold Star dad Steven Nikoui gets ‘hero’s welcome’ at pub after heckling Biden at SOTU — as GOP calls on cops to drop charges
Friday, March 08, 2024
A Brother on the Moon #CommissionEarned
On a December day in 1967, a pilot whose jet fighter is in the process of cracking up ejects a moment sooner and therefore lives when he otherwise might have died. A life that would have ended on the tarmac at Edwards Air Force Base continues on. Six years later, Major Robert Lawrence, United States Air Force, becomes the first black American to walk on the Moon.
Thursday, March 07, 2024
Wednesday, March 06, 2024
STARSHIP'S THIRD FLIGHT TEST
The third flight test aims to build on what we’ve learned from previous flights while attempting a number of ambitious objectives, including the successful ascent burn of both stages, opening and closing Starship’s payload door, a propellant transfer demonstration during the upper stage’s coast phase, the first ever re-light of a Raptor engine while in space, and a controlled reentry of Starship. It will also fly a new trajectory, with Starship targeted to splashdown in the Indian Ocean. This new flight path enables us to attempt new techniques like in-space engine burns while maximizing public safety.
Tuesday, March 05, 2024
Texas’s Newest Boomtown: Elon Musk’s apparent plan to build a city outside Austin fits into the state’s long-standing tradition of start-up communities.
Why is America Going Back to the Moon #CommissionEarned
The moon has held a fascination with Americans ever since President John F. Kennedy threw down the gauntlet and challenged the Soviet Union to a race to land a man on Earth’s neatest neighbor and return him safely to the Earth. 60 years later, a different president of the United States, Donald Trump, proposed that Americans and astronauts from American allies return to the moon. Trump’s Artemis project, unlike previous attempts to return to the moon, looks like it actually may succeed. Why does American want to return to the moon? Is it science? Is it riches? Is it glory? Or, perhaps, it is a combination of the three.
Monday, March 04, 2024
Sunday, March 03, 2024
Could Elon Musk’s Mars colony turn a profit?
When SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks about making humanity a multi-planet species by founding a Mars colony, he gets positively mystical about his desire to “preserve the light of human consciousness.”
However, as a capitalist, Musk has to know that his dream of expanding human civilization to Mars has to turn a profit. Unlike the moon and asteroids, the answer to that question is not immediately obvious.
Saturday, March 02, 2024
Rethinking the homunculus: When we discovered that the brain contained a map of the body it revolutionised neuroscience. But it’s time for an update