Somewhere, Robert A. Heinlein is smiling. Check that, he is more likely roaring with delight that at long last, a privately developed rocket has been successfully re-flown in an orbital flight. That the most recent mission took place from a government owned launchpad that is practically a shrine to taxpayer funded frustration in the […]
After working through a four month stand-down as it sought to understand and address the cause of the September 1st, 2016 explosion that destroyed a Falcon 9 booster and its payload during a pre-launch wet dress rehearsal at Cape Canaveral, SpaceX returned to flight in typically dramatic fashion on Saturday, successfully launching 10 Iridium Next […]
Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. As U.S. space pundits await signals over what direction NASA’s policy will take under the Trump Administration, this photo of the European Space Agency’s general meeting should serve as reminder of some of the downsides of increased international participation in large space projects. Exercising leadership and […]
A Sunday “Ask Me Anything” segment on Reddit by SpaceX CEO Founder and CEO Elon Musk filled in some of the details regarding the company’s recently announced Mars plans. It also demonstrated once again the unique nature of SpaceX’s path to its overriding goal and a big picture approach which is strongly reminiscent of the […]
It’s been a while since InnerSpace has revisited the topic of Tesla, which though not directly space related is still very significant for multiple reasons. Yesterday, Tesla released a new 100 KWH battery pack for the Model S and Model X, which among other things takes the range of the Model S over 300 miles, […]
What a week in space. It began of course, with SpaceX launching a Dragon spacecraft to ISS for the 9th time, and landing a Falcon 9 first stage at Cape Canaveral for only the second time. It also featured a speech and curious non-endorsement by former astronaut and first female Shuttle Commander Eileen Collins at […]
During the course of a wide ranging interview on stage at the Code Conference 2016 in Broomfield, Colorado, SpaceX founder and CTO Elon Musk gave a bit of preview regarding his Mars colonization plans which will be revealed in September at the International Astronautical Congress in Monterrey, Mexico. While he was reluctant to give any […]
Blue Origin has successfully conducted a third consecutive launch of its New Shepard reusable suborbital booster. The latest flight of the hydrogen/oxygen single engine rocket topped with an equally reusable Crew Capsule included several new elements. First, in a welcome development, company founder Jeff Bezos advised followers via Twitter on Friday that a new […]
In an interview in The Verge, the world’s most famous astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson threw some serious shade on SpaceX’s Red Planet ambitions. ” The delusion that relates to private spaceflight isn’t really what you’re describing. They’re big dreams, and I don’t have any problems with people dreaming. Mars One, let them dream. That’s not […]
In 2013, the Houston Chronicle’s Eric Berger conducted a remarkable interview with retired NASA manager Christopher Kraft, the engineer who was the agency’s first manned spaceflight director, and who played a critical role in designing each of the boosters which elevated the United States from sub-orbital flight to the surface of the Moon in less than […]
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