New Information on Titan’s Lakes
Titan is the second coolest planet in the system. Go Team Dragonfly.
Episode T+119: Dr. John Charles
Dr. John Charles spent nearly 33 years at NASA—most recently as Chief Scientist of the Human Research Program—working on human spaceflight through Shuttle, Mir, ISS, and beyond. He lead missions such as STS-95 (John Glenn’s Shuttle flight), STS-107, and the Twins Study with Scott and Mark Kelly. He retired from NASA in February 2018 and is now the Scientist in Resident at Space Center Houston. We talk about his career, the human spaceflight issues he worked and solved in his time at NASA, and the things that need to be solved for the exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
Episode 18 - Autogenously Pressurized Double Double
Kate Howells of the Planetary Society joins Jake and Anthony to talk all things Canadian space policy.
Episode 18 - Autogenously Pressurized Double Double
Kate Howells of the Planetary Society joins Jake and Anthony to talk all things Canadian space policy.
Episode 18 - Autogenously Pressurized Double Double
Kate Howells of the Planetary Society joins Jake and Anthony to talk all things Canadian space policy.
Talking Space Force on Something’s Off with Andrew Heaton
I joined Andrew Heaton on his show, Something’s Off with Andrew Heaton, to talk about all things Space Force—where things stand, where they’re headed, what needs to be solved, and of course, uniforms.
Can Space Force Stop Somali Rocket Pirates?
Is a U.S. Space Force an inevitable step to protecting satellites and commercial space activities, or just an expensive exercise in shuffling Pentagon bureaucracies? Military and aerospace expert Anthony Colangelo joins Heaton to sort things out.
DARPA Launch Challenge Down to Three
I understand why Vector and Astra are in, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why Virgin Orbit is interested.
Rocket Lab Photon
There’s a lot of interesting flexibility here with Rocket Lab’s new kick stage-derived satellite bus.
SpaceX Wins DART Launch, Drops Lucy Protest
A solid $30 million under their previous NASA science mission contracts, but DART is only 500 kilograms, so will likely be sharing its ride.
Episode T+118: Rapid Agile Launch Initiative
Last week, the US Air Force announced and expounded on the Rapid Agile Launch Initiative. Along with the new initiative, the new era of small launch is finally here, so it’s worth discussing a bit.
Thanks to March Patrons
Very special thanks to the 271 of you out there supporting Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon for the month of March. MECO is entirely listener- and reader-supported, so your support keeps this blog and podcast going, growing, and improving, and most importantly, it keeps it independent.
Rapid Agile Launch Initiative
I was on a call earlier this week with US Air Force officials talking about the Rapid Agile Launch Initiative (RALI), which is the program handling the acquisition of new small launch vehicles.
Relativity Signs Telesat, Eyes Polar Launch Site
Good to hear them signing customers, but I’m ready for this era of extreme secrecy of space projects to be over. As far as the launch site is concerned, my bet is on SLC-3W.
Dodgy Starliner Delays
Starliner’s uncrewed test is now NET August, and Chris Gebhardt has a pretty brutal piece that’s definitely worth reading on it.
India Attempted ASAT Test in February
What’s most interesting here is the implication that the US government knew about India’s ASAT testing ahead of time. Additionally, there has been little-to-no response from US officials, aside from NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
Sierra Nevada Inflates Their Protoype Habitat
It’s a big one. I continue to be excited about someone other than Bigelow working on inflatables/expandables.
Episode T+117: Q&A
This month we talk EM-1, Moon by 2024, the commercialization of LEO, and more.
New Skylab
One of the things I’m always interested to hear more about is Blue Origin’s long-term plans for in-space architecture. Not the general vision of the future—the actual hardware that makes it possible.
First Vulcan Flight Hardware
From what I’ve heard, Vulcan is making really good progress, and is one of the odds-on favorites for selection for NSSL Phase 2. That said, we’re still waiting for BE-4 to get to full power.