🧵 THREAD: The true reason Pete Hegseth is being targeted is because he's standing between President Trump and a coup@PeteHegseth named the institutions… CFR, Brookings, the general class… in 37 seconds in a video by @Liz_Wheeler . Within 72 hours of his nomination, a color… pic.twitter.com/DgWilvJlf8
— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) April 21, 2026
Launch Industry Woes
The only company currently performing is SpaceX.
And then we have the suit problem (that I talked about in my Reason study last year). But Eric Berger seems sanguine about it:
People often say there's no difference between "new" space and "traditional" space. Not true, and we've seen that play out with this spacesuit contract. Axiom has no guarantees it will ultimately profit on its fixed price suit contract with NASA. It could lose big time. But the…
— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) April 21, 2026
[Afternoon update]
I left Rockwell a third of a century ago when it became very clear that, despite being the prime contractor on the Shuttle, they didn't see themselves as being in the space business. They were in the government-contracting business.
— Rand Simberg (@Simberg_Space) April 21, 2026
The “Palestinians”
Everyone is lying to you about them: A history.
The Chief Justice
He has been a disappointment, but then so was George W. Bush in general.
On The Iran War
Future Scarcity
An interesting discussion on the implications of AI and robots. Read the whole thread.
Maybe unpopular opinion? I think an age of abundance via AI might cause more war instead of less, because the value of land on earth will trend toward infinity (there is finite land on earth), while the cost of creating robot armies to fight over it will trend toward zero.
— Phil Metzger (@DrPhiltill) April 18, 2026
The Latest From Jared
I understand some in the community have an affinity for specific hardware, but the focus should be on outcomes. With respect to SLS, the desired outcome is launching crewed Orion spacecraft at a reasonable cadence, rebuilding muscle memory, and buying down risk so we can land…
— Jared Isaacman (@rookisaacman) April 17, 2026
[Mid-morning update]
An interesting interview with him.
[Noon update]
ICYMI, from Jared’s X post: “I do not want to throw away billions of taxpayer dollars, and time we do not have, on a flavor of a rocket that is not necessary to return astronauts to the moon.”
Jeff Greason
I haven’t listened yet (it’s a two-hour interview), but I’m sure it’s interesting:
This has gone live now. Wide ranging; how I got in the field, what worthy goals are for the space enterprise, some of what we need, and of course, advanced propulsion. Gets a little emotional in spots. And 2 hours long ….https://t.co/CyO6dZPone
— Jeff Greason (@JeffGreason) April 16, 2026
Thanks to @tmro https://t.co/iIdePreSGP
Intelligence Versus Wisdom
Interesting thoughts. One of the purposes of the Senate was to be the wise house, to tamp down the impetuosity of the People’s House. We lost a lot of that with the 17th Amendment.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: “An AI trained on engagement will optimize for engagement. An AI trained on profit will optimize for profit. An AI trained on wisdom would optimize for something else entirely, but we would have to know what wisdom looks like before we could train for it. And we have spent the last century systematically dismantling every institution that once tried to answer that question.”
ULA’s Woes
I’m starting to wonder how long they’ll survive. With Blue Origin finally flying (if still at low rates) and other providers coming on line, maybe it doesn’t matter.