For example, the argument about "too many launches" actually breaks down when you consider the payload that gets brought to the lunar surface. If it was just meant to be a cheap gag, feel free to ignore the following: The LEM weighs a little over 5 tons dry, and leaves half of its mass (2.5 tons) on the surface upon return. Maybe factor in another ton for dispensable cargo and Apollo delivers 3.5 tons of material to the lunar surface (not all of this is "useful" material, but we can ignore that for the time being). Starship HLS is designed to leave 100 tons of useful payload on the lunar surface. It would take 28 Saturn V launches to deliver that much material to the moon! And that's with fully expendable launch vehicles! Suddenly a dozen (or even 2 dozen) fully reusable Starship launches doesn't sound so bad in comparison.
I also thought the criticism about the complexity of the Lunar Gateway is somewhat missing the point. To me it seems clear that a lot of the complexity in the mission is the goal; that is, developing bleeding edge technologies that we need for future manned space travel to the moon and beyond. At some point we're going to have to maintain a station somewhere in deep space acting as a permanent hub that supports ferry/cargo craft and landing vehicles. The best place to prove out that concept is around the moon.
Amazon announced Friday that it has purchased three Falcon 9 rocket launches from SpaceX beginning in mid-2025 to help deploy the retail giant's network of Kuiper Internet satellites. //
Last year, Amazon bought up most of the Western world's excess launch capacity from everyone but SpaceX, securing 68 rocket flights from United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, and Blue Origin to deploy thousands of satellites for the Kuiper broadband network. Amazon previously contracted with ULA for nine Atlas V launches to support the initial series of Kuiper launches, the first of which lifted off in October with Amazon's first two Kuiper prototype satellites. More Atlas Vs will start launching operational Kuiper satellites next year. //
Amazon is helping to fund a big expansion in ULA's footprint at its Florida launch base, an effort that will double the ULA's launch capacity. The investment to fund the growth in ULA's capability to support Kuiper launches totals about $2 billion, with around $500 million going toward upgrades at Cape Canaveral.
Those upgrades include the outfitting of a second vertical hangar and a second mobile launch platform for Vulcan rockets, alongside the integration facility and launch table already built to support the first few Vulcan missions. Having dual lanes for launch processing in Florida will allow ULA to fly as many as 25 Vulcan rockets per year, the company says.
ULA and its subcontractors are also expanding factory space at locations around the country to produce more Vulcan engines, solid rocket boosters, and payload fairings for the Kuiper missions.
Amazon and ULA officials hope these investments will spare the Vulcan rocket from the growing pains experienced by other launch vehicles as they enter service. For example, it took 31 months for the Atlas V rocket to reach its fifth flight in the early 2000s. A decade ago, SpaceX's Falcon 9 made its fifth flight 33 months after its inaugural launch.
That won't do if Amazon is going to deploy more than 1,600 Kuiper satellites by mid-2026.
Once we open the path to the stars, we set humans on a quest for eternity that this life can never fulfill. //
All but a small few have no idea whether we can colonize Mars. The technological subjects overawe most minds. But all must consider whether we should colonize Mars and eventually other planets in distant solar systems.
We, indeed, face a fork in the road of human destiny, and we should consciously plot our course. //
Musk has given a compelling philosophical defense of multiplanetary colonization. In an interview with Google co-founder Larry Page, Musk said that “human consciousness is a precious flicker of light in the universe, and we should not let it be extinguished.” //
In Perelandra, the second book of his Space Trilogy, C.S. Lewis described the motivation behind humanity’s quest for interplanetary colonization.
“It is the idea that humanity, having now sufficiently corrupted the planet where it arose, must at all costs contrive to seed itself over a larger area: that the vast astronomical distances which are God’s quarantine regulations, must somehow be overcome. This for a start.”
He warned that if man ever had “the power … put into its hands” to reach distant planets, then it would “open a new chapter of misery for the universe.” //
Maybe we can tolerate some losses of native extraterrestrial species for the preservation of the human species. And maybe humans will perpetually land on worlds with nothing but raw materials. But we need to determine whether God gave us our native terrestrial ball to govern, as Lewis contended, or whether he gave us a universe to govern. //
Once we open the path to the stars, however, we set humans on a quest for eternity that this life can never fulfill. The only hope of eternally maintaining the light of human consciousness is in the Holy Spirit. Musk’s dream for mankind might turn into a nightmare that stretches across galaxies and millennia.
On Monday, Israel shot down a ballistic missile in flight outside of the Earth's atmosphere. This marks a historical first time that an anti-ballistic missile has successfully intercepted a target in space during combat. The missile was fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen and was targeting Israel. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) used their Arrow anti-ballistic missile defense system, which is a joint American-Israeli project first deployed in Israel over 20 years ago.
Over the past couple years, NASA's Parker Solar Probe has continually smashed its own speed records. And in the next year, it will continue to break more records.
The agency's well-fortified spacecraft is swooping progressively closer to the sun, and during each pass, picks up more speed. In 2018, soon after its launch, the probe became the fastest human-made object ever built, and by 2024 it will reach a whopping 430,000 miles per hour.
At such a speed, one could travel from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., in 20 seconds.
The spacecraft recently reached 394,736 mph. //
Space weather researchers have some weighty questions. They want to know why the solar wind accelerates after it leaves the sun, reaching up to 2 million mph. They want to grasp why the corona (which reaches 2 million degrees Fahrenheit) is so much hotter than the sun's surface (it's 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit). And they want to understand how extreme space weather, caused by different types of solar explosions, can behave and ultimately impact Earth. //
On the outskirts of the corona, the spacecraft is relentlessly exposed to brutal heat and radiation, and in September 2022 it flew through "one of the most powerful coronal mass ejections (CMEs) ever recorded," NASA said. Yet the craft remains in great shape. That's largely thanks to a 4.5-inch-thick carbon heat shield that's pointed at the sun. The shield itself heats up to some 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, but just a couple of feet behind the shield, the environs are surprisingly pleasant.
"Most of the instruments are working at room temperatures," Raouafi said.
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