mikegarrison

It almost sounds like you think it is a good thing if billionaires buy access to the government in order to intimidate the people regulating their companies from doing the job that the people of the country hired them to do.

Governments retire aircraft carriers when they decide they are too expensive to keep in operation. Governments don't have unlimited budgets. It is quite clear that Russia has been subsidizing the cost of the Soyuz by taking paying passengers (both private and from other governments).

Its biggest problem right now is not having a customer who wants it. I'm not sure that can be fixed. "Orbital Reef" might want it, except oh look, they have their own crew vehicle in mind. It is a program risk for NASA to only have one non-Russian option for flying to the ISS, but if they really were worried about that, then they wouldn't have pulled the plug on the Starliner OFT crew return. Dual option procurement always sounds like a great idea to government agencies when they decide to try it, but except in wartime when they simply have no other choice, they never seem to actually like dealing with the realities of it.

At the time that NASA chose to not fly the crew back on Starliner, despite Boeing declaring that the return flight was safe (and of of course it did safely land), NASA effectively signaled that Starliner was always going to be nothing but a hopefully-unneeded backup to Dragon. Boeing at the time said they would continue with the program, but that was before they lost an estimated $5B due to a strike by the IAM machinists. And while I hate to get into US politics, it's unavoidable as a real part of this discussion, due to the fact that the incoming administration has obvious ties to Musk and SpaceX. I'm not sure I see a political path for NASA to declare that no further flight testing is necessary, when they themselves chose to not have the astronauts fly back on the Starliner. But the flight testing is coming from Boeing's pockets, not NASA, and I see no path to Boeing paying for another flight test. So would a Trump-Administration NASA pay for another orbital flight test of a Starliner that they apparently don't trust and don't want and is a competitor to Dragon? And since all remaining launches of the Atlas V are already sold, would there be a market to sell released Starliner launch slots to other Atlas V customers?

I would not be surprised if Starliner never flies again. Boeing is bleeding cash, just came off of a massive strike, and is laying off something like 10% of their workforce. Meanwhile NASA has clearly signaled that they don't trust Starliner. The Starliner program is a net money-loser for Boeing, and I don't see much reason why they would continue to pay for it. I especially suspect they will not be willing to pay a single dime to fly yet another orbital flight test.

The complaint came from the Florida state environmental agency, not the EPA.

Pretty sure they already have. Multiple times. I think that's why Boeing gave them money. I think that's why Rolls Royce gave them money. Etc.

It was always pretty clear that they were never going to build their engine, much less an entire spacecraft. But they had some pretty serious interest from other companies that were interested in the heat exchanger technology they were working on. One of the possible ways to improve gas turbine efficiency is recuperation.

Not supposed to do things like that without the appropriate permits. No matter whether you think the permitting agencies are moving fast enough or not.

Highly likely that whoever gave him that name was thinking about that too.

Turns out the forum server was so surprised the "catch" worked that it melted down.

Well, after waking up this morning checking the news, that was pretty spectacular. Well done.

Except why should it have "just gone through"? Should SpaceX be allowed to do anything they want to just because they want to do it? Can you find any law or rule that says this *exemption* (and I highlight that word) should have been granted to them?

Companies are made up of people. Government agencies are made up of people. Legislatures are made up of people. These are realities that most adults understand. USSF and SpaceX were asking for a favor. They were asking for additional launch slots. An exemption to rules that limit how many launches can be made per year. Nothing in the law requires that they be allowed this exemption. There is already a history of USSF promising environmental mitigation that they then don't do. And in this case, USSF was asking for a DoD exemption so that SpaceX could launch commercial launches ... which already seems pretty questionable. Bottom line, though, is don't publicly insult someone and then ask them for a favor. That's just not too smart. If SpaceX or USSF thinks the Coastal Commission acted outside the law, they are of course free to file suit against them in court.

But let's be blunt here. Musk has spent the last 5 years or so deliberately publicly insulting the state of California. Decisions like that carry consequences.

You left out "Space Force asked for the exemption because of DoD needs, even for purely commercial, non-DoD launches".

I'm guessing it's a college football thing.

Like the Boeing tradition of painting large murals on their factory doors.

Very interesting! This reconciles the claims that have been mentioned before about this being a capability with the observed fact that the X-37 has never done it. Apparently it has only been a potential ability up to now, but now they will test it. Of course, it has limitations. You can't gain energy in this way, only lose it. So I'm not sure I see a lot of utility for it. Maybe it could have some military uses for making the orbit temporarily unpredictable.

I would not be surprised if eventually the government orders Starlink and SpaceX ownership to be separated for anti-trust reasons. It's more complicated than that. It has to do with anti-trust. When independent dealers started selling cars, the auto manufacturers tried to freeze them out to prevent the competition. Eventually states started passing laws to protect and eventually require independent ownership of the dealerships. Arguably, it is now the dealerships who are using their leverage (particularly in state legislatures) to squeeze the manufacturers. But it started as a way to prevent the manufacturers from squeezing the independent dealers.

Uh, no. It is a WRITTEN rule that government agencies will protect CBI (Confidential Business Information) to the extent that they are legally allowed.

Why would organs need to be grown in space anyway? All of our current organs grow right here in the Earth's gravitational field.

This is an interesting flight of fancy trying to work "rocks and sticks" into spaceflight, but from experience I can tell you that hunters throw rocks "when frustrated" no more than anyone else does. Probably less, because generally they are trying to be not noticed. And, of course, rather than imagining "flying on a rock", isn't it more likely that people would imagine being able to fly like the flying things they saw all around them, namely birds and insects?

It's not really on topic, but for politeness. Lee and Miller's Liaden series.

Would a successful flight by New Glenn "demolish" Starship? If not, why would the other way around be true?