Amazing

Falcon 9 completes our 100th droneship landing of the year! pic.twitter.com/O5J25bw1ca

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 13, 2024

A Sigh of Relief...

...from those astronauts. Seems to me they were damn lucky to make it up.

Major Tom Not Coming Home on Starliner — What Next for Boeing?

Fifty-Three Years Ago Today...

July 20, 1969: One Giant Leap For Mankind

That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. - Neil Armstrong

Some Good News

SpaceX Capsule and NASA Crew Make 1st Splashdown in 45 Years

Now if we could just get them on the next flight to bomb Portland from orbit...

Rest in Peace

Eugene Cernan, last man to walk on the moon, dead at 82

Time for a new space race?

China claims to have a working version of NASA's impossible engine orbiting the Earth - and will use it in satellites 'imminently'

The question becomes, given the magnitude of this, why is it a surprise? We have 21 expensive intelligence agencies; not one of them knew the Chinese orbited an EM Drive? Of course it will be a while before we can do orbital tests. We have no rockets. That’s preparedness. Perhaps Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos can help? This is a signal larger than Sputnik. If the Intelligence Community knows about Russian hacking, why doesn’t it know about Chinese testing of a reactionless drive? - Jerry Pournelle

Bill Whittle: A Crash In The Mojave

Astronaut Neil Armstrong dies at age 82

He's taken his next leap.

Rest in peace

A bit of history passing by.

The estranged wife and S1 and D3 are Cocoa Beach and saw this from the her Dad's yard. The picture is a cellphone picture of the viewfinder of her camera and therefore sucks. It's still neat. They were all excited. Mostly depresses me.

H/T to Theo

X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle

It looks like the Air Force isn't waiting on NASA and what comes after the soon to be ended shuttle program.

Today in History

1962 – Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth, making three orbits in 4 hours, 55 minutes.

Forty-seven years later we’ve gone to the moon, have a space station in orbit satellites all over the place probes exploring the solar system and that’s about it. Man is stuck on Earth and near Earth orbit. Probably that’s where the United States is going to stay. Whether China and Russia are grounded remains to be seen. That’s what NASA has given us. If the bureaucrats will get out of the way and let the private sector step up maybe maybe one of the remaining remotely free nations left on this planet will move into space.

NASA budget cuts

Obama intends to cut funding for NASA’s manned moon program. I’m not sure Congress is going to buy in. Too much of their pork is involved. I’m actually ok with moving NASA away from manned lauches. I’d rather let private enterprise step up to fill the gap. The problem is will the federal bureaucrats let them? If the bureaucratic bullshit the alphabet agencies are famous for makes the cost prohibitive, I don’t see it. I’m afraid Obama just gave away the final frontier to the tyrants: China and Russia In this one I’m not sure we’ll get a second chance.

H/T to Tam.

Today in History

1986 – Space Shuttle Challenger explodes after liftoff killing all seven astronauts on board.