I wanted to spend some time breaking down a few news items from last week that may be leading indicators of trends for 2019: layoffs at Stratolaunch, Tethers Unlimited, and SpaceX, and Relativity signed a lease for Launch Complex 16 at Cape Canaveral.
Chris Gebhardt of NASASpaceflight joins me to talk all things SpaceX: Starship and its upcoming hopper tests, DM-1 and the government shutdown, and more.
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They clearly would like to operate multiple Pacific Spaceport Complex locations, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them explore other options in the Pacific, like Guam.
Jamie and Matt of The Interplanetary Podcast had Jake and I on their show for a wrap-up of 2018. I could not possibly have had more fun doing this episode—give it a listen!
Jonathan McDowell joins me to talk about his recent paper proposing 80 kilometers, rather than 100, as a more appropriate boundary of the edge of space.
Pretty cool to see Spaceflight sign a deal like this, where they book a full-size primary payload and will match secondary payloads with it on a dedicated launch. Seems like an attractive service for all parties, and I hope to see more of it in the future.