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.
…Damn, but I love living in the future sometimes.
Continue reading Civilian orbital space mission going fine.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.
And he’s ready to spend billions of dollars right here on Earth* to break it:
Continue reading Jeff Bezos has Lunar Fever.This seems fairly needlessly petty:
Continue reading FAA denies Wally Funk her Commercial Astronaut wings?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.
Looks like it all went without a hitch.
Points to Bezos for being on the first one, too. I’m not ashamed to admit that in his place I might have been more thoughtful about acquiring that particular honor. Although I’d like to think I would have gone for it, too.
There are worse things for billionaires to compete over.
Continue reading Billionaire Branson’s Blastoff Beats Bezos.Richard Branson reached space on a test flight for Virgin Galactic before gliding back to earth and touching down safely Sunday, the latest salvo in the burgeoning space tourism business led by high-profile billionaires.
The Virgin Group founder launched Sunday with three company employees, flying 53 miles above the earth in a final test mission before kicking off commercial space flights next year. Branson – who earned his pilot’s license – tested the astronaut cabin experience.
…so do I.
Excuse me: ‘Starships.’
“The Department of the Air Force seeks to leverage the current multi-billion dollar commercial investment to develop the largest rockets ever, and with full reusability to develop and test the capability to leverage a commercial rocket to deliver AF cargo anywhere on the Earth in less than one hour, with a 100-ton capacity,” the document states.
Continue reading USAF officially interested in SpaceX’s upcoming line of suborbital strategic transport shuttles.…I suspect that if that fungus actually exists there, it’s because it came along for the ride. And that ‘if’ is a big if. I don’t think we’d be able to really tell without sending somebody to actually look, preferably with a full biolab included.
Moe Lane
PS: Yes, I’m assuming that the fungus would try to kill us. I don’t trust fungus in the slightest. Not on Earth, and definitely not any hypothetical Martian equivalent. I’ve seen zombie flicks. My kid played The Last of Us. I know how this ends.
I understand that the People’s Republic of China labors under the limitation of a third-rate political and economic ideology, but really, orbital mechanics are hardly new: “China launched the first module for its space station into orbit late Wednesday, but the mission launcher also reached orbit and is slowly and unpredictably heading back to Earth.” One does hope that it doesn’t land on anything populated.
Continue reading PRC’s Long March 5b incompetently put in orbit, likely to irresponsibly deorbit.