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THE NEW SPACE RACE: Blue Origin launches 2nd human-rated New Shepard rocket, nails landing.
Jeff Bezos’ aerospace company launched its uncrewed NS-27 mission at 11:30 a.m. EDT (1530 GMT) today, sending a brand-new New Shepard rocket-capsule combo on a brief trip to suborbital space. No people launched aboard NS-27, but the mission flew 12 research payloads, five of them on the booster and seven inside the capsule. The rocket reached a maximum altitude of around 332,000 feet (101 kilometers) before returning for a landing around seven minutes and 20 seconds later.
Roughly three minutes after that, the company’s new crew capsule, the RSS Kármán Line, came in for a parachute landing in the West Texas desert.
Nice job, sticking the landing. Next up: reusability.
JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: My chat (+transcript) with space journalist Eric Berger on SpaceX and America’s New Space Age.
Related: Two new anti-space books. For some people, the only invention they approve of is the wet blanket.
Also: Some Columbus Day Thoughts About Elon Musk: Big achievements and the hatred of the petty-minded.
FRED HOYLE SMILES: Did Life Begin in Space? The Surprising Discovery of a Crucial Sugar Acid.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: After nozzle failure, Space Force is ‘assessing’ impacts to Vulcan schedule.
Col. James Horne, who oversees launch execution for Space Systems Command, called the test flight a “successful launch” in an interview with Ars. The nozzle failure caused a “significant loss of thrust” from the damaged booster, he said.
The Vulcan rocket’s ability to overcome the dramatic nozzle failure, which was easily visible in video of the launch, “really demonstrated the robustness of the total Vulcan system,” Horne said.
“They nailed the orbit, probably one of the most accurate orbital insertions that I’ve seen them fly yet,” he said. “And at the end of the mission, they did some extended duration testing … which was not part of the orbital insertion. And even after that extended mission, they still had substantial performance reserve left over.”
That’s a good sign and “officials expect to approve certification for the Vulcan rocket.”
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Catching the Starship: A Breakthrough for Humanity.
Many of the barriers to interplanetary travel and colonisation that feature in popular science articles—such as the threat of cosmic radiation and the difficulties involved in running bioregenerative life support systems—are in fact mass problems in disguise. Radiation can be mitigated by travelling faster through deep space—which uses more propellant, so it’s a mass problem; and by employing additional shielding, also a mass problem. A closed-cycle bioregenerative life support system, which recycles all human waste products into consumables, is beyond our technology at present—but the gap between what is needed and what can be produced through recycling can be made up with supplies from Earth—and so that, too, is a mass problem.
There are still many engineering problems to be solved, but there is also an ample supply of problem solvers on Earth, whose work will be enabled by the coming dramatic drop in launch prices. Just as the density of transistors was the fundamental problem that had to be solved to enable the entire computer industry to rapidly solve software problems, cheap mass to orbit is the fundamental problem which, when solved, will allow rapid solutions to all the other problems of living in space. If the Starship development program succeeds, it is going to unlock this for us.
Starship flight test 6 could come before the end of the year.
GOOD NEWS FOR SPACEX: U.S. government eases export controls on space technologies. “The changes would reclassify many space technologies as commercial items rather than weapons, removing commercial satellites from the U.S. Munitions List that is regulated under the highly restrictive International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), and placing them under the more flexible Commerce Control List.”
IT HELPS IF YOU CAN ACTUALLY LAUNCH STUFF: SpaceX prevails over ULA, wins military launch contracts worth $733 million.
TYPICAL EU — NOT MUCH SPACE PROGRESS, BUT A SPACE LAW. WHICH ALSO ISN’T MAKING PROGRESS. Further delays and hurdles for EU Space Law.
SPACE: Rocket Report: Bloomberg calls for SLS cancellation; SpaceX hits century mark.
Meanwhile, a friend writes:
Why this op-Ed now?
I’m sure we’ve all seen the Bloomberg attack on Artemis. Some folks who are concerned about expensive parts of the program like SLS have been praising his piece.
Bloomberg may or may not be wrong, but he has been pro-Dem, anti-Trump, anti-space and pro-China for years.
In 2018 his PAC targeted Dana Rohrabacher (CA), Steve Knight (CA) and John Culberson for elimination. All the most solid space supporters. All China hawks (that may have been his real goal). All friends of ours. He put in over $10m to take out Rohrabacher, who normally raised a few hundred thousand in his campaigns run by his wife, Rhonda.
He even funded ads attacking space spending specifically like this one:
Bloomberg has been a “friend of China” for years. His cringiest moment might have come a couple years ago when he apologized to Beijing over the UK PM calling China “authoritarian.” Bloomberg tweeted, “”Some may have been insulted or offended last night by parts of the speaker’s remarks referencing certain countries and their duly elected leaders … To those of you who were upset and concerned by what the speaker said, you have my apologies.”
Again, not an argument for SLS, but beware messengers with other agendas.
Good point. SLS is stupid and should be canceled, but. . . .
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Nations pursue sovereign space capabilities fortified by commercial services.
COMETS AND AURORAE: Space Porn From the Ground Up [VIP]
LIMITED TIME DEAL: Space Heater, 1500W Electric Heaters Indoor Portable. #CommissionEarned
PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Musk Sues California Commie Regulators for Blocking SpaceX Launches Over Politics.
EUGENE VOLOKH ON SpaceX’s First Amendment Claim Against California Coastal Commission. “The California Coastal Commission recently decided to block SpaceX’s increase in annual launches at Vandenberg Space Force Base from 36 to 50. SpaceX has just sued, claiming the decision was preempted by federal authority, violated state law, and also violated the First Amendment. I can’t speak to the preemption arguments and the statutory arguments, but I wanted to pass along some thoughts about the First Amendment question. SpaceX is arguing that the Commission’s 6-4 decision was influenced by the Commissioners’ disapproval of Elon Musk’s politics and speech.”
That’s not a hard argument to make, since the Commissioners basically said that.