For Phantom and Vaya. Their first rockets are supposed to be a bit smaller than Firefly Alpha. And they don’t seem to have reuse ambitions. I don’t see much of a point, but it isn’t my money.

I wish they would have gotten LC-48 instead. The policy to launch and land from the same complex makes sense to be fair to the other companies who might eventually want to try it (Blue, Relativity, Stoke), but, in the meantime, it must be an inconvenience for the only company actually landing anything.

After everything that has gone into the ISS, dropping the crew size now would be such a waste. Losing 1 out of 7 crew members, when they are more productive than ever, would cause much more than 1/7 loss of science because of all the background work it takes to keep the station operational.

Extending crew rotations is much less bad than cutting crew, but it still isn’t great for spreading experience around the astronaut corps.

We should be talking about more private flights to station, new Axiom modules, and flights of Starliner and Dreamchaser. Not cutting back.

A full flow staged combustion engine without a customer is really weird. Hopefully we find out soon who will use this.

I don’t feel great about NASA’s lunar plans right now, but I’m holding onto hope that commercial stations take off. Cutting ISS operations now, when it’s more productive than ever, is so stupid and shortsighted, but the clock is ticking and we need to be investing more in the replacements. Vast seems promising.

A screen porch for the hammock is awesome!

Especially in bug heavy areas, more screened space is so nice. There are a few times I’ve camped with hammockers who brought and shared an extra dome tent to keep their stuff and change clothes.

When do we get the electric RS 6 Avant?

Given that a regular A6 and S6 start at $58.1k and $75.9k, that isn’t toooo crazy. The S6 E-tron is pretty much the same price as the ICE one.

TRACERS is a cool program. Studying space weather like this is such a perfect example of NASA’s science mission being helpful for everyone in space and everyone on Earth that uses those services.

The launch being a NASA rideshare with 3 other NASA missions, an ESA one, and a private one, is also really cool.

It still kills me that the launch was delayed by an FAA power outage, when the Skykraft sats on board are for air traffic control and could have helped with that exact problem.

This is extra funny because one of the rideshares, Skykraft, is for air traffic management

It would be cool to see them dock to Tiangong.

I’m not convinced that an ESA owned and operated station is worth it, but a European module on a private station could be a good middle ground.

1 teragram?

contingent on Environmental Impact Statement.

vader_nooo.gif

I don’t think Europe will get a SpaceX, but I could see some of these companies being their Rocketlab and Firefly.

As much crap as I give the incumbents, Maia is looking like Europe’s best bet at the moment.

It’s a bad sign that PLD isn’t targeting a Miura Next launch until 2030. Hopefully Miura 5 goes well for them in 2026.

Most SUVs are just less practical minivans for people in denial

I drove a new Hyundai Sonata hybrid and was pretty annoyed by how flaky the lane keeping and adaptive cruise control were, plus the shift knob thing and clunky hybrid/EV switching after a red light.

I had wireless Android Auto in a rental car last month and loved it. My car just has the wired version. With wireless, I just sat down and it had locations up already that I was looking at and picked up the music or podcast I was playing. I’m a fan.

🅱️

I’m glad that a bunch of startups made the cut. It makes sense that Maiaspace got in, as an arm of Ariane, but they’re probably less strapped for cash. And thank goodness at least two have reusable concepts, PLD and Maia.

Which ship had leaked photos of the inside of the payload bay during reentry with burned through areas randomly scattered all over?

But, also, can’t have heat shield issues if the ship blows up on ascent or during testing.