October 1, 2026 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, plus the first link from reader Nate P. 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.
- War Dept enlists Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, and Newt Gingrich to study the technical “future of war”
The study is dubbed Project Meridian, and is tasked to make its report in 120 days.
- NASA awards Modulate Space a $38 million contract to demonstrate a lunar 5G network
The contract calls for a demo on Earth by January 31, 2028, and a lunar test by the end of 2028.
- NASA awards contracts for three new science instruments for the lunar surface
The release provided no information as to how these instruments will get to the Moon.
- Stratolaunch buys Boeing 777-200ER
It expands the company’s fleet for transporting its Talon-A hypersonic flight test vehicle.
- China’s state-run press touts its Qingzhou cargo capsule, designed to bring supplies to its Tiangong-3 station
Its design is now approved and finalized, with a first flight scheduled to the station in 2027.
- This week in 2022 Juno made a close fly-by of Europa
It was the closest look of the icy moon in over 20 years.
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Being able to get 100 troops and 100 tons of equipment to land anywhere inside an enemy country in 90 minutes.
The ABMA looked at that too, before USN and USAF had them done away with on the down low.
Lots of folks look at the military as just another hand-out too….the logistical left overs of interventionism, the Cold War.
You lot bash NASA about rice-bowls–while huge kettles boil over.
Given who else is involved, it’s unlike to be ‘troop rockets’ as envisioned by the ABMA. My guess is a mix of drones, AI, space-based energy, perhaps orbital weapons either fired from space to hit targets on Earth, or dropped from orbit and deployed from reentry vehicles. There’s no point in holding onto bitter resentments given that the ABMA became part of NASA in 1960, and that there was no realistic chance of the US deploying troops somewhere on the Earth via rocket in the 1950s anyway.
Jeff, you seem to believe that NASA and its programs are above reproach. They are not. I think you also have a fundamental misapprehension of what most of us here want. You make a big deal about the size of the government budget and how much of it is spent on NASA. What I think you continually miss is that most people simply aren’t that interested in space, and that’s okay. It’s not some hideous insult that every kid in America doesn’t want to be an astronaut. What logically follows is that the government is not going to be able to sustain the scale of expenditures that you want on spaceflight, which leads us to two further conclusions: the first being that wisdom would advise us to elect politicians who will get the most out of NASA’s budget as possible, along with an administrator (who we now have) with a real vision and forward-looking goals. The second is that, for Americans who are interested in space, our best bet to see it grow is the private sector. This has already been borne out–SpaceX has built the world’s largest constellation (by far), operates the world’s most reliable rocket, is well into development of its next leap forward, and its alumni have founded dozens of new companies, building everything from space stations, to asteroid mining spacecraft, lunar landers, orbital factories, space tugs, data centers, PNT, and beyond.
Just because something is a government program doesn’t make it immune to downturns, rising costs, and certainly not changing political winds. Some programs last, Some don’t. If we want a space sector that lasts, it needs to be an even more integral part of the economy, and that means cheap, reusable transport, however we get it. One-offs that we build and throw away at great expense just won’t work.