I am in the last throes of getting the house on the market. Tomorrow is my last day in Florida (I hope), at least in terms of getting this house sold (I will come back for launches, but if I never go to south Florida again, I will have no regrets). Tomorrow night we fly to Denver, and back to LA on Tuesday. Then after a couple days of catching up at home I’m in Santa Monica for the Space Settlement Summit on Friday and Saturday, then on a plane to DC all week for COMSTAC and satellite servicing conference. So, probably still not a lot of blogging.
Things may be more lively after I get back from DC for a couple weeks, but then I’m off to Europe for a couple weeks. Anyway, life is not boring.
{Update late evening]
What the hell, let’s make this an open thread. Just be good.
Everyone on the International Space Station uses the same tube of toothpaste. https://youtu.be/3bCoGC532p8?t=169
Joke reaction: I knew SLS and JWST were sucking up the budget but this is ridiculous.
Serious reaction: Transmission of pathogens in a closed, remote environment is not a minor threat when living in space. This is ridiculous.
What’s wrong with south Florida?
Between the near term lunar robotics missions and the long term Gateway, it looks like there are openings for new companies to enter the game, but will they? What are the chances that a non-traditional contractor gets a shot at supplying Gateway? (I know a lot of people hate it and it will probably never get built because SLS isn’t likely to last that long but…)
A lot of recent announcements about bringing more commercial options to NASA have but the awards have mainly gone to traditional government contractors. It makes me worried that the new way of doing business is being co-opted by the old way of doing business.
“Sergei Krikalev, the executive director of “manned programs” for Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos, said a sensor on board the rocket failed to properly signal the separation of the first and second stages. As a result, one of the side-mounted rocket boosters did not separate properly from the vehicle and collided with the rocket.”
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/10/russian-official-says-soyuz-rocket-failure-caused-by-an-errant-sensor/