I’m Anthony Colangelo.

I’ve been in the thick of my Big Cartel Employee Art Grant project for the past few months. I’ve been sourcing components, working on various mounts and enclosures, and designing the final product.

In response to this, I saw a lot of people scoffing and saying “Only 10 percent? They had said 30!” The sentiment seemed to be that SpaceX missed their mark and can’t offer a 30 percent reduction right now, rather than realizing that they are making a sensible decision.

The RFI seems to indicate that an extended Cygnus would be a great fit for the flight, as we’ve seen Orbital ATK talking up previously.

Thanks to my patrons for the month of September. If you’re getting some value out of what I do here and want to send a little value back to help support Main Engine Cut Off, head over to Patreon and donate as little as $1 a month—every little bit helps.

Pretty interesting to read through what NanoRacks has announced. They even mention human-tended experiments once Blue Origin starts flying people aboard New Shepard.

Scheduling the launch for the last slot in the initial window without a comment doesn’t express a lot of confidence. Rollout is scheduled for Tuesday (October 11), at which point the storm should be well out of the way.

Alejandro G. Belluscio of NASASpaceFlight wrote a fantastic piece on Raptor with quite a few interesting tidbits.

Last week on the podcast, Jake from WeMartians joined me for a discussion of our initial reactions to SpaceX’s Mars architecture. Today, I’m on his podcast with a bit of a deeper dive.

Sierra Nevada is finding every way it can to make Dream Chaser a reality. Their sticktoitiveness makes you believe we’ll see the crewed version launch at some point in the next decade.

Jonathan Goff wrote a nice blog post that’s really worth reading. He goes in-depth on what he likes, what he doesn’t like, what he’d do differently, and discusses his thoughts on the economics of the plan.

Rocket Lab announced that Launch Complex 1 is completed and ready for launches. We should see that first test flight on the schedule soon enough.

Orbital ATK posted a video over on YouTube showing their ideas for placing Cygnus-derived habitats in lunar orbit, and using them as the base for SLS-Orion missions throughout the 2020s. It also hints at the station staying there beyond the initial missions and supporting European (or other international) missions to the lunar surface.

If you haven’t gotten a chance yet to listen to Jake’s conversations with the crew members of HI-SEAS IV, I highly recommend checking it out. They’ve got incredibly interesting insights into the human side of long-duration missions.

My baseline expectation is a scaled-up Dragon 2. But maybe that’s not the best layout for a much larger spacecraft like we’ll see next Tuesday. There might be a way to design the spacecraft that would lead to a better layout, better functionality for payload, and better performance for atmospheric entry.

Looks like SpaceX has some plans of its own for streaming their announcement at IAC.

If the endgame here is to be used as the engines for the SLS advanced boosters, I would not be surprised in the slightest.

Throughout the troubled history of NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission, I’ve been miffed at the off-and-on relationship it has had with planetary defense.