Tag: space

Space Force reopening historical launch pads.

Which, honestly, is as it should be: “The U.S. Space Force is allocating three launch complexes at Cape Canaveral, including one used for several NASA Mercury missions six decades ago, to four small launch vehicle startups as the service tries to keep up with growing launch demand.” The Mercury pads are historic sites, yes. They’re also historic because that’s where people strove to put rockets in the sky. Put a brass placard on the side of the building, maybe add a mural, and get those sites working again.

Via Glenn Reynolds.

ARTEMIS 1 launches.

Pretty much without a hitch, this time: “The historic Artemis I mission took flight in the early hours of Wednesday morning after months of anticipation. The milestone event kicked off a journey that will send an uncrewed spacecraft around the moon, paving the way for NASA to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time in half a century.”

Footage of the launch itself:

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…

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…