And here’s the megafeed of everything I’ve been doing.
This next year is pivotal for NASA, and for the trajectory of US-based spaceflight, in general. The pieces on the table can be arranged to either double down on the status quo—NASA needs more money and it needs a plan, dammit!—or to shed the old baggage and embrace a new way of thinking.
I joined our good friend Brendan Byrne on his great podcast, Are We There Yet?, to discuss the ins and outs of how a Falcon first stage finds its way back to the landing pad. If you haven’t listened to his podcast just yet, there’s no better time than now to head on over and do just that.
Just what goes into the engineering feat of landing a 180 foot tall booster that’s rocketing through the sky? How does SpaceX guide the booster back to land or the barge? And what keeps aerodynamic and thermal forces from ripping apart the thin-skinned booster? Fellow space podcaster Anthony Collangelo, host of the “Main Engine Cut Off” podcast joins us to talk about just what goes into bringing the booster safely back to earth.
A nice blog post about what it is they do over there, and why people fly with Masten. It’s a great read if you aren’t familiar with what they do, and still a great read even if you are.
Somehow I don’t think reusing reaction control engines is the thing that’s going to allow Boeing to be competitive in the current commercial space environment.
Jon Goff with some thoughts on how the second generation megaconstellations will be impacted by the presence of SpaceX as both a constellation operator and launch provider.
An interesting report by /u/Colege_Grad/ over on the Blue Origin subreddit points to the fact that Blue Origin will have its next New Shepard vehicles in Texas by May.
As the award date approaches for the 2018 Air Force launch vehicle development contracts, we keep hearing from Congress about how they would like to see it go. And I discuss the future of Antares and the Next-Generation Launch Vehicle in light of the continuing flights of Cygnus on Atlas V.
With the launch of OA–7, I’ve been thinking about the interplay between Cygnus, Antares, Atlas V, and Orbital ATK’s Next-Generation Launch Vehicle.
Saying the end goal is to develop two launch vehicles doesn’t mean the Air Force is only giving out two contracts. They could—and probably should—award more than two contracts, so that they can still meet their goal even if one or more contenders fail for any reason.
Regardless of how you think our collective plans should be organized, we can all agree that we’d rather see something happen. Let’s be honest about where we’re headed, and get on with it.
I haven’t said much about NASA’s proposed Deep Space Gateway and Transport architecture yet, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot.
Downsizing, relocating to a lower-cost location, and doubling-down on just about the only politicians who have been working for them lately.
An extensive and informative article by Chris Gebhardt, for NASASpaceFlight, on the recent Commercial Crew update given to the NASA Advisory Council.
In addition to our sweet new push notifications for orders, we’ve also recently released a handful of awesome little features to Big Cartel for iOS that should make staring at your phone all day that much nicer. Here’s a quick rundown.
I’m excited to announce the launch of a brand new project: the Main Engine Cut Off Shop. This isn’t the typical “sell a t-shirt with your podcast logo on it” sort of project (though I do love me some podcast tees)—it’s an ever-growing collection of custom-designed products for space geeks like you and I.
Rob Meyerson, president of Blue Origin, talked a bit more about their Blue Moon concept at the Space Symposium this week.
Yesterday at the Space Symposium, Jeff Bezos had some interesting comments on Blue Origin’s plans.
Jeff Foust, for SpaceNews, on Blue Origin’s progress on BE-4 firings, and how ULA is managing the downselect for Vulcan engines.
Much cleaner structure—and a better name—for a solution I still don’t believe in much at all. Interestingly, the rebrand frees up the “Vulcan” name in the aerospace field, at a time when there have been rumors of a potential rebrand for ULA.