April 16, 2026 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Video of a ground test of China’s proposed system to catch rocket first stages using cables
It looks to be a half scale engineering test prototype. The system seems very Rube Goldberg, but for once China is actually doing something original.
- Drone pictures showing the aftermath of Blue Origin’s incident at their 2CAT facility
Holes are still visible in the roof with some debris outside.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.
- Video of a ground test of China’s proposed system to catch rocket first stages using cables
It looks to be a half scale engineering test prototype. The system seems very Rube Goldberg, but for once China is actually doing something original.
- Drone pictures showing the aftermath of Blue Origin’s incident at their 2CAT facility
Holes are still visible in the roof with some debris outside.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Jared Isaacman tweet.
https://x.com/rookisaacman/status/2044940336590397627?s=46
It’s a different world now for the surviving SLS trash talkers on X, because now there’s the live threat that the NASA Administrator will jump into their replies and hit them with a Truth Hammer.
Thanos telling us his snap was justified. No dice.
He has the rightful power for this de facto sabotage on the very rocket that handed America its first manned Moon flights–and Congress, should it flip–can do the same to Boca.
You sure you want this Zero Sum game, Jared? You aren’t the only one playing:
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/MQ1qkV0jHkQ
Spicy tweet by Jared, there are many ruffled feathers in the replies. He’s more engaging and honest than any other administrator this century.
Jeff Wright,
What makes you believe that he hasn’t been meeting with members of Congress specifically to persuade them to let him wind down the SLS program? Why are you so eager to take revenge on people who did nothing to you? Why do you want to see Congress abuse its power? You keep talking about the dignity of workers, but you’re practically salivating here at the thought of harming them. Why be hypocritical?
If you’re trying to claim the SLS is a win for America rather than for Alabama, you derailed it here.
You really are deluded. The cheers came from across the nation–no thanks to you.
This is the second Moon rocket Alabama built for America that zealots want to destroy.
There could very well be a blue wave coming….and I actually don’t want to see Boca shuttered if for no other reason than seeing the workers there hurt either.
But peaceful coexistence like Hillhouse begged for is no longer in the cards…..you slapped the hand away.
No matter.
In materials news
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-microwave-energy-fuel-graphene-faster.html
I can see this useful for bootstrapping.
The fusion front
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/nuclear-fusion.35088/page-13#post-900357
Jeff Wright: You method of debate is now beginning to devolve into insults. I won’t have it. People disagree with you and cite actual facts to explain why. You response now is to say they are “deluded” and “zealots”.
That is not an argument, it is name-calling. It must stop NOW. If you think you have real data to support your position — such as how America can pay for SLS in an affordable way that will allow it to launch more than once a year — we would love to hear about it. But just spewing insults is not how debate happens on this webpage.
Jeff Wright,
“The cheers came from across the nation”
But did the cheers come from people who knew how much that mission cost, or were they from people who didn’t think it was very expensive? The photographs could have been taken for less cost by unmanned spacecraft, and seeing craters unseen before plus going farther than anyone has gone before just aren’t worth the price.
Artemis II didn’t test anything that couldn’t have been tested safer in low Earth orbit, and it didn’t prove out any methods or hardware that needed such a risky mission. The different reentry trajectory is not worth much, because it will not be standard operating procedure in the future, and the obsolete heat shield design will never fly again, so it needed no verifications.
The cheering was for a stunt that didn’t go wrong. We can say that we “beat” the Chinese back to the Moon, but everyone knows that what counts is landing men there and bringing them safely back home.
While it’s undoubtedly the case that there will be a great deal of revenge taking if, God forbid, Democrats were to assume control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue in 2029, it’s really unlikely that this will manifest itself in NASA policy in any significant degree. Isaacman got a good deal of Democratic votes at confirmation; but more to the point, he clearly has bipartisan support for the changes he is making to Artemis. Note that the NASA Reauthorization Act of 2026 empowers the NASA Administrator (Mr Isaacman) with broad authority to restructure the Artemis program, specifically allowing them to “repurpose, reprogram, reconfigure, or reassign existing programs, platforms, modules, or hardware. That passed committee in both houses with unanimous support. He really seems to have bipartisan buy-in for these changes, so far.
Secondly, note that very little of SLS or these ancillary hardware components are being built in blue states. When Democrats have intervened on NASA stuff over the last year, it’s been over funding scrums for science programs which happen to be on chiefly run by NASA centers in blue states, like the cuts that Trump tried to make at JPL and Goddard. In fact, this happened again just yesterday, when four Democrat senators wrote a joint letter urging more funding for Mars Sample Return (which is still nominally in the purview of JPL).
Could there be revenge taken at Elon Musk? Sure. But I think that SpaceX has protection for its role in Artemis, because Blue Origin is also going to be the second vendor for the landers and for any commercial replacement of SLS’s role (if and when the time comes for the latter). And for everything else SpaceX does, it’s either the sole or the dominant company able to do it. They’re basically indispensable to NASA and DoD. Makes it hard to get rid of ’em.
Richard M,
Anent Mr. Wright’s fevered fantasies of Democrat revenge on Elon there is – in additional to the decidedly problematical chances of the Democrats ever reassuming significant power – the little matter of the Constitutional prohibition on bills of attainder.
Should the Democrats be stupid enough to try going after Elon in any significant way – and some of them plainly are that stupid – they will find that he can go after them a lot more effectively should he choose to. DOGE was only a warm-up exercise compared to the ruin Elon could heap on the American left from entirely outside the government were he ever to be sufficiently goaded into doing so.
Don’t be too sure. Voters are fickle.
Alabama is about the most Red State there is–and yet:
https://www.wbrc.com/video/2026/04/19/rally-against-nebius-data-center/
Now–I cannot stand NIMBY types.
As much as I bag on tech-brahs, I am on their side here.
I guarantee you every one of those protesters has clogged the cloud with the same pictures of birthdays, weddings, porn and other nonsense. I am guilty of having an acid tongue, but I try to be original at least
A lot of guys in my state voted for Doug Jones. Trump supporters may stay home during the mid-tetms if gas prices don’t drop.
I actually don’t hate successful people.
In fact, Keanu Reeves (who has no ego and is fine with everyone thinking he is a low I.Q. slacker) is a hero of mine.
Knowing special effects are the real stars of his movies, he made sure that VFX guys got a million dollars apiece.
Some earn their money in how they make it–others in how it is spent.
Speaking of movies–there is one named FOXCATCHER that is the most uncomfortable movie I have ever seen in theaters. It talks about how one of the DuPonts fell into madness.
I could see that happening to a Musk or Bezos. Limp and Shotwell told them no without getting fired at least.
Swalwell never had anyone tell him “no,” well… actually he did, but…
My point is that great wealth doesn’t just make you crass (I have that in spades being spaceflight ‘s Gore Vidal)–it is that wealth can also make you weird.
And not always in the good, Elon way.
That’s worrisome.