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I'm not sure I've ever read a more horrifying sentence. The last thing our over-regulated country needs is for its thoroughly captured bureaucracy to have the ability to create more rules in shorter time. DOT is probably not the best place to test AI either. Can AI do word salad? Sure. But the...

The best comparison I can think of (short of actually experiencing low gravity) is driving electric forklifts. In a warehouse with a smooth floor, these glide around very smoothly. It's very easy to forget that what you're driving weighs several tons. Your mind says that it's light because the...

One thing that everyone should be able to agree on is that the current plan has some significant flaws. But Griffon's plan seems to be to abandon everything except for the one part that is consistently over budget, behind schedule, and decades behind in technology. Anyone proposing a plan that...

A "single point of failure" was the exact phrase that went through my mind when I read that the first stage was a single massive engine.

I just want to compliment Eric for using "3,270 to 1" in the article. That's the kind of attention to detail that makes his writing great.

I've been thinking about this too, and I'm not coming up with anything. The criteria are: 1. Fits on a small pallet 2. Can survive 5 years in extreme conditions 3. Need can be predicted years in advance 4. Value exceeds cost to stage and deliver I can come up with material that fits two or...

So we have < 20 incidents reported? What would be useful to know is how many times the systems are used. If there are 2.5 million vehicles, then let's assume that the systems are only ever used once (which is probably low). Let's also assume 99% of incidents aren't reported. That would still...

We live in amazing times. This is an excellent reminder of some of the great things we've accomplished in this century alone. I love it.

I would love to see an in depth look from Eric at what's different in v2 of Starship and what they're looking at for versions beyond that. What changes have been in the works for a while as they plan for new capabilities and what changes are the results of lessons learned during the first 5...

Conversations with the Russian dictator, an open and avowed enemy of the United States, is troublesome to say the least. This should be investigated and if necessary, there should be consequences for Elon. But, there's a difference between acting against an American citizen for actions that...

I do not envy the NASA administrators making this decision. If they're not >99.7% sure it's going to be safe and choose to send them home on Starliner anyway, then they need to explain why they chose to ignore the previously defined safety margins. I don't see anything in this mission that would...

That last line was exactly what I wanted to know.

I have to admit I'm surprised that Starliner even launched with the helium leak issue not fixed. It seemed for a while there that the traditional rocket industry giants like Boeing would always be over budget and late, but what they delivered would work exactly as advertised. Not so much here...

I was interested in this, until I saw that the only source was from the Union of Concerned Scientists, the same group who specializes in fear-mongering and hysteria with their ridiculous "Doomsday Clock." In this case they seem to be using their hypothetical disaster scenarios to ask for the...

Long term planning (especially the inflexible kind done by authoritarian states) is not always an advantage. It might work, or it might lead you down a path that ends with your rocket creating one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. (Look up N1 if you're curious.)

What happens when access to space is no longer rare or expensive? Well, expensive is a relative term. What Starship can do will cost a heck of a lot less than any rocket before. But it's still not exactly cheap.

IM hasn't been anywhere close to as transparent as Astrobotic was. That's unfortunate. I'd hoped that was the new standard.

One unmentioned challenge with injuries is that sometimes decreasing the risk of one type of injury increases the risk of another. As the article points out, increased traction between cleats and the playing surface can lead to ACL tears and ankle injuries. But decreased traction can lead to...

I've had my 6P for close to a year now. Battery life is pretty limited at this point (3 or 4 hours), but I'm a pretty heavy user so I expect batteries to lose their ability to hold a charge over time. The 6P battery was never great. This big old screen takes a lot of juice. That said, I've only...