space – Moe Lane

There is a mysterious rocket body crater on the moon.

Somebody should go and take a closer look at it. …And pretty soon, we should actually be able to. We are so tantalizingly close to actually having rocketships…

After a rocket body impacted the Moon last year, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was able to snap a surprising view of the impact site. Unexpectedly, the crater is actually two craters and may indicate that the rocket body had large masses at each end: https://t.co/WtMAFrNkUw pic.twitter.com/hcoYPxlm8z
— NASA 360 (@NASA360) June 27, 2022

Via @RobinDLaws.

Went to the Air & Space Annex today!

Well, they call it the “Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center,” but I’m not calling it that. It’s the place in Virginia with all the cool big aerospace stuff. Which works for me.

I also saw Friendship 7 and the Concorde, but I forgot to get pictures of those. Anyway, we went with the kids, who started out being far too cool for the thing — and ended up snickering about space diapers and being properly revolted over astronaut ice cream. So it was a good time all around. Seriously: if you ever get the chance to go, go. As I said, it has all the BIG stuff, and you can go right up to them and take a good look. Totally worth the trip.

Moe Lane

FILLLMMMS… INNNN…. SPAAAACE…

Assuming that this isn’t just PR nonsense, mind you: “Space Entertainment Enterprise has announced that they will be co-producing Cruise’s space film project, and they propose to build an arena production studio in space. It will be a place for filmmakers to shoot movies and shows like this in zero gravity.” Also mind you: if we can get price-per-pound to orbit down low enough, this becomes feasible. It’ll likely be only feasible as a publicity stunt for the rest of my life, but that’s all right. Future generations can have their own future.

First Starship orbital tests in January.

But let me translate Elon Musk, here:

It was announced earlier this month that Elon Musk, the creator of SpaceX, will make an effort to launch his company’s futuristic, bullet-shaped Starship into orbit in January, but he is not optimistic about the outcome of that maiden test flight.

(Via Instapundit) Translation: that sumbitch gonna blow up. Which is why there’s not going to be a single thing on that prototype that won’t be a sensor to help engineers better understand why it blew up. Fortunately for Musk, by now it’s understood that SpaceX routinely incinerates a few rockets on its way to the next step. That has proven to be quite valuable to his long-term plans…

Bezos plans to build Orbital Reef in, guess where, orbit.

This is smart of Jeff Bezos. He should stop chasing Elon Musk when it comes to building rockets and concentrate instead on building orbital business parks:

Blue Origin, the spaceflight company founded by Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos, has unveiled plans for a space station called Orbital Reef.
The space station would be built to give anyone “the opportunity to establish their own address on orbit” by providing services such as planning, payload development, training, transportation, data analysis and security.

The KIRK! IN! SPACE! livestream.

For your amusement.

Tweet of the Previous Weekend, This Is Getting Excitingly Dull, Fast edition.

Oh, look. It was just another successful private space mission. This one happened to be manned, fully automated, and involved multiple orbits. Oh, yes, and there were the usual reusable booster and all the rest of the things SpaceX does, sure, sure.

How… prosaic.

Splashdown! Welcome back to planet Earth, @Inspiration4x! pic.twitter.com/94yLjMBqWt
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 18, 2021

Civilian orbital space mission going fine.

…Damn, but I love living in the future sometimes.

The crew of the first all-private orbital space mission has spent Thursday, the first full day of the mission, circling the Earth every 90 minutes at over 17,000 mph.
SpaceX reported the Crew Dragon Resilience capsule with four civilians inside was traveling 363 miles high over Asia as of mid-morning, quickly moving over the massive continent. The altitude is a full hundred miles higher than the International Space Station.

Jeff Bezos has Lunar Fever.

And he’s ready to spend billions of dollars right here on Earth* to break it:

FAA denies Wally Funk her Commercial Astronaut wings?

This seems fairly needlessly petty:

Federal aviation regulators have made a rare change to the requirements for its Commercial Astronaut Wings Program, meaning Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos may not officially be recognized for his spaceflight this week.
The Federal Aviation Administration changed rules for the program on the same day Bezos, his brother and two others made their historic first commercial spaceflight on Tuesday.