AckSed

Musk says that they lost comms with the launch tower computer, and that's why they aborted:

Anything you can do...: https://spacenews.com/china-quietly-tested-its-first-inflatable-space-module-in-orbit/ An interesting test (even if it does look more like an inflated beachball), but a technical detail is that Shijian-19 had a total mass of 3.5 tons, and the payload of the recoverable section was 5-600kg. An unknown portion of it is still up there, possibly with the test module still attached.

Sudden flight of fancy had me imagining rocket pirates "aggressively salvaging" downed rocket stages, and they've just struck gold. Edit: Sadly, it was then sunk:

Excuse you, wood has a long history in thermal pr- no, sorry couldn't finish that with a straight face. Only one I do recall is early Chinese heatshields being impregnated oak. It is an impressive structure.

More news on Big Orange Rocket: consensus seems to be "Stack it, send it": https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/11/nasa-begins-assembling-rocket-to-send-astronauts-around-far-side-of-the-moon/

Case in point: here's an article from Anchorage Daily News: https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2024/08/18/satellite-internet-has-disrupted-the-market-in-alaska-and-transformed-everyday-life-for-many/

How about illogical reasons? I'm thinking of one of my favourite blog posts, here: Science and data are among the best ways to be objectively persuasive, but remember that data alone isn't the reductionist end of every single topic. People can quote stats and costs till they're blue in the face, but it will not change the fact that as of this moment, both Musk and Shotwell are set on Mars and see reusable upper stages and in-orbit refuelling for those stages as the way to achieve it. "Going to Mars" is their big, grand, persuasive story for everyone in SpaceX. Parallel to that is a more general excitement of doing something no-one has managed before. No matter how much you think upper-stage reusability is the wrong direction, and chasing it is holding up progress on Artemis; to have a hope of shifting opinion, of persuading, you need to tell your own story of a hopeful Lunar base future based on cheap heavy lift with expendable upper stages. Beyond tonnage, beyond costs... What does this Lunar program look like? What will be the moon base? How soon will it happen?

Simulation suggests Phobos and Deimos could originate from a single asteroid breaking up, thanks to Mars' gravity: https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/planets/mars/making-mars-moons-supercomputers-offer-disruptive-new-explanation-2/

Here's an accelerated look at Ship's re-entry. You can see the wrinkle in the steel form:

They said that this was an older heatshield without the ablative layer, too. And what about that rear view of the engines? Fascinating, and proof that the tail is the less extreme area for heating. Even if that bright trail was a little worrying.

Demolition. But yeah, the re-entry was a nail-biter. Happy they pulled off the relight.

Ship landed, didn't blow up but was not the happiest. Distinct heating and actual wrinkles in the steel visible from the rear-pointing camera. Probably why it broke on hitting the water. That we could actually see it happen thanks to the daylight landing is a great thing.

Nice views of the inside regardless.

Here's something cool. Back before Falcon 9 started its tests, NASA engineers were considering supersonic retropropulsion to land on Mars, because its atmosphere was too thin to really decelerate with aerobraking before a human-landing craft entered. But there was no opportunity for tests. No-one had a spare rocket lying around. Then they saw SpaceX trying to land a rocket, firing up engines in pressures and speeds remarkably similar to Mars' entry conditions and they asked, "Mind if we get in on that?": https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/new-commercial-rocket-descent-data-may-help-nasa-with-future-mars-landings/ Now they believe that it's the best way to land: https://www.universetoday.com/169697/the-new-mars-landing-approach-how-well-land-large-payloads-on-the-red-planet/ Of course, there's still questions to answer, but there we go: SpaceX helped NASA.

Chang'e 6's lunar samples show the age of the South Pole-Aitken basin on the far side of the moon (and presumably its surface, which is rugged and cratered, vastly different from the near side) as 2830 million years, with a lack of radioactive elements that scientific theories thought would have kept the magma molten. Science link to article

I believe that valuation of a company is not wholly rational. It is both a prediction - "This company is worth this much because it will produce this much." - and a gamble: "If you buy shares, you will gain a return on investment." It may be based on data, even good data, but there's always something that is overlooked in any prediction.

Sierra Space makes non-sexy but useful prototype equipment for the ISS: https://www.universetoday.com/169229/a-trash-compactor-is-going-to-the-space-station/

Perseverance surveys the difficult climb it's been attempting out of Jezero Crater: https://www.nasa.gov/missions/mars-2020-perseverance/perseverance-rover/nasas-perseverance-rover-looks-back-while-climbing-slippery-slope/ It's still only halfway up and they even tried driving backwards to increase traction. Eventually they settled on driving near the rim, where larger rocks are under the sand fines (Red Mars reference). It's currently filled 30 sample tubes, with 11 left over. 2 were skipped because of a risk the sample arm's wiring could catch on a corner.

I believe it's time to truck out that Apogee video on redundancy using HLS: tl;dw you can either truck astronauts up with Dragon to use HLS plus depot and tanker as a ferry to the landing system already in orbit, or adapt Dragon to add lunar navigation and radiation shielding, and a docking port on the trunk to allow use of the SuperDraco thrusters as an abort system.

Simulated moon-base set up on Indian mountain: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/indias-first-mars-moon-analogue-mission-kicks-off-in-ladakhs-space-like-terrain/articleshow/114842575.cms

The two cubesats inside Hera successfully phone home: https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Hera/Hera_asteroid_mission_s_CubeSat_passengers_signal_home

Australia getting into this commercial-space stuff for the first time: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-04/gilmour-space-technologies-orbital-rocket-launch-permit-granted/104503690

After Superheavy's booster catch, Firefly's looking for any advantage: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2024/09/firefly-mlv-testing/

Having looked through the relevant thread on NASASpaceflight I think the answer is: nothing to the Ship apart from the tiles. They're going to launch, try for a relight and see what goes right or wrong again. Incidental: I forgot this, but Ship 31 was the Ship that had the electrical fault in its raceway. It's also the Ship that now has a Banana For Scale: https://twitter.com/bocachicagal/status/1854636262902403476

More details of Sierra's activities, including an in-house mission control: https://spacenews.com/sierra-space-expands-spaceplane-fleet-with-in-house-mission-control/ Here's the sweet part for a tech-head like me, though: That is the demonstrator version of their smallest habitat, with, if you zoom in, models of the possible 4-module station, stowed configuration inside the fairing, inflated configuration and the development paths and stowed configuration of the larger LIFE modules. If I don't miss my guess, the display we can partially see on the lower left has it standing on the Moon. A hab is a hab, it seems. Very exciting.