CatastrophicFailure

Well, Russia and Mars don’t have a very good relationship to begin with. Maybe if they launched from Venus, instead...

Didn’t they have something much like this during the original Apollo install? A great, big slide that led down to an underground bunker? Part of me would be screaming “flarp yeah, woohoo!” The bits that matter, however, would be huddled up in the corner rocking back and forth and whimpering something about a “happy place...”

Equal parts “Weeeeeeee!” and “AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!”

At least it’s not:

I would spend it on Space Pirates. ಠ_ಠ Arrrrrrrrgon, shiver me turbopumps!

I pushed the button. well... technically the wife did... but the button was pushed ...and I get to sit in it... And this just needs to be repeated...

n-body problems.

Aww.

So, if the flight is under maritime law, and they steal the Apollo 15 LRV, would they legally, then, be space pirates?

Cue a gallery of senators with fingers in their ears chanting “lalalalalalalalalalalalalala...”

Only time will show, but I think Hoppy will deserve a place in the Smithsonian, eventually. Largely because there’s a pretty good chance of losing one or both of the Mk 1’s during testing.

Having some amount of control is a good thing, especially if you want to get it within range of a waiting helicopter. And like SpaceX has demonstrated, enough control to cock the booster just a little sideways so it “glides” creates more drag, so it slows down quicker and higher, potentially reducing heating.

Editor not so good this time. Bad editor, no donut! Should probably be skipping them anyway... If there is I’d sure like to know, too. I think they can only be parsed by hand, the forward/back at the end is a nice touch tho.

Tiny. Little. Gridfins. Maybe even actual waffle irons. It is just for testing, after all...

And this after swearing they’d never pursue reliability. So, begs the question, is that Electron Heavy that was mentioned upthread in the pipe? How about Electron Starship?

Farewell, B1047.3, we hardly knew ye.

Reusability really is the future. And the future is now.

We’re pretty close to a real contest right now, there’s an Atlas over on that other pad. I say set both T-0 to the same time and first one to orbit wins! Bonus points if the expended boosters fight on the way down. And FWIW, there was an attempt at actual rocket spectator sport. Sadly, it went the same course of most rocket startups...

Give it a proper Viking funeral. Onward, to Booster Valhalla!

Maybe they'd get more views if they still showed the view from the booster all the way down...

We got our first chicken egg today. Idin’it cuuute? Shown here next to a freakishly large, cholesterol-laden, double-yolker butt slug one of the ducks keeps pumping out with slightly disturbing regularity.

If going via A380 to London really is cheaper overall, the satellite doesn't really care if it takes a little longer. @Dale Christopher never actually specified where his hypothetical cubesat was going, after all, and Rocketlab is currently building a facility for lower-inclination orbits. Or maybe his cubesat just wants to fly on an A380, cuz they're not going to be around forever.

Perhaps a better analogue, here is that if Starship is fully and rapidly reusable, and flying regularly enough to bring down the overall cost per kg to something crazy low, it’s far easier to cram that cubesat in, with or without its own propulsion stage (cubesat propulsion is being worked on), on a launch that just happens to be going the right way. Y’know, like sticking one more little box on a loaded 787. But speaking of things not like airplanes... They’re gonna need a VAB...

So, Bezos has been lapped and is just behind the game, now Peter Beck is the arch-nemesis?

So, given the speed of the average govt bureaucracy, these permits should be approved around 2357. Of the next aeon. Quite, it’s usually used in a financial/contract sense, referring to various deposits, wire transfers, and other agreements.