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Here’s why a Japanese billionaire just canceled his lunar flight on Starship
  • In recent months it became clear that if Maezawa's mission happened, it would not occur until at least the early 2030s—at least a decade after the original plan.

    The original target was 2023, so is Berger saying he already had inside information that it wouldn't fly before 2033?

    If, yesterday, you'd told me 2027, I'd have believed you!

    We might actually find out, because there was a 2nd circumlunar tourist trip planned. If that's still going ahead, maybe it'll just be promoted to the 'slot' that was previously allocated to Dear Moon?

  • Everyday Astronaut: Interview with the Polaris Dawn Crew
  • 23:23 "Most of the IVA suits have an inseam zipper ..."

    Just checking that everyone (who wants to) has seen this in action. Here's Sultan Al Neyadi putting on his IVA suit without assistance while on the ISS. (32:49 to 38:12.)

    Is anyone aware of a better video of the suit than that?

  • SpaceX has now landed more boosters than most other rockets ever launch
  • I don’t mean SpaceX, I mean Elon Musk

    Neither your comment, nor the article you are commenting about, mentions Elon Musk once! What am I supposed to think?

    And if it's him you're talking about, then what does your term "disgusting extravagance" apply to? All those super yachts and private islands he owns and spends so much time on? /s

  • SpaceX has now landed more boosters than most other rockets ever launch
  • Are all rocket missions a "disgusting extravagance" or just the SpaceX ones?

    The dozens of launches to the ISS? The Intuitive Machines moon lander from couple of months ago? All those TV satellites servicing various parts of the world? The hundreds of communications satellites?

  • [Postponed] WorldView Legion 1 & 2 Launch Discussion and Updates Thread!
  • "WorldView Legion 1 & 2" sounds like a computer game and its sequel! For half a second I genuinely wondered whether I'd misunderstood some aspect of how Lemmy works, or something, and was seeing posts from a different [subreddit] ...

  • SpaceX IFT-3 Recap Video
  • At 0:18 we see what I presume is the mission control room near the launch site.

    But the camera wasn't actually shaking that badly, was it? That was a special effect added for this video, right?

  • Crew-7 returns to Earth
  • From the official NASA coverage:

    https://www.youtube.com/live/PJAUetG6C2E?t=42m25s "It performed norminal ... excuse me ... nominal, which basically means normal".

    I actually genuinely prefer when the SpaceX commentators accidentally say "norminal", precisely because "nominal" does NOT mean 'normal'. It's closer to the opposite.

    If Alice was thinking of buying a car from Bob and I told her "the vehicle I bought from Bob works fine, nominally", she would rightly take that as a warning.

    If my family member was in space and I heard on the nets "safety systems nominal", I'd be bricking it!

    AFAICT it's only the space industry that gets this wrong.

  • NASA Administrator seems to hint at 2nd Stage recovery
  • That's actually what worries me about this. If they are thinking of reusing 2nd Stages from the Falcon 9, does that suggest we need to start being more pessimistic about Starship timelines?

    Not necessarily, of course. I think they're committed to continuing to fly the Falcon 9 as long as customers want it? So extra F9 reusability could still be worth the investment, even if they were predicting Starship to be operational very soon.

    Also, this could just be recovery for inspection, not for reuse.

  • NASA Administrator seems to hint at 2nd Stage recovery
  • I for one welcome even just the hope that it might happen!

    Is the 2nd Stage too heavy for a net? It's probably too much to hope that Ms. Tree comes out of retirement, right?

    Any chance they could use second-hand dragon parachutes?

  • NASA Administrator seems to hint at 2nd Stage recovery
    www.youtube.com NASA Administrator Briefing from the Kennedy Space Center

    Live from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson joins other NASA leaders and program managers to give remarks ahead of NASA’s Space...

    NASA Administrator Briefing from the Kennedy Space Center

    Quote from Bill Nelson: >... SpaceX, by having the return of the first stage, has brought the cost down significantly. That has affected the entire launch industry. We'll be seeing attempts at bringing the second stage down on some missions.

    The key sentence is (currently) 52 minutes and 48 seconds into the video. Approximately 49 minutes after the event started.

    No other mention is made of this. Should we assume he's specifically referring to the 2nd Stage of the Falcon 9? What is the likelihood that he is mistaken? Could he just be thinking of the existing deorbit procedure? Or could SpaceX be putting parachutes on some of their 2nd Stages in the near future?

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