Random thoughts on politics, current events, popular culture, and whatever else interests me.
Thursday, March 07, 2024
Wednesday, March 06, 2024
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
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
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.