SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites
SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
92 SpaceX
61 China
17 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 105 to 61, and the entire world combined 105 to 96. SpaceX now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 92 to 96.
This was the 201st launch this year, the first time ever that the global launch industry has exceeded 200 launches. Before 2021, annual global launch totals were generally less than 100. It now looks like there is a good chance they will never again be as low as that. (I should have noted this at the 200th launch, but missed it.)
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 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
SpaceX tonight successfully launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.
The first stage completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.
The leaders in the 2023 launch race:
92 SpaceX
61 China
17 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 India
American private enterprise now leads China in successful launches 105 to 61, and the entire world combined 105 to 96. SpaceX now trails the rest of the world combined (excluding American companies) 92 to 96.
This was the 201st launch this year, the first time ever that the global launch industry has exceeded 200 launches. Before 2021, annual global launch totals were generally less than 100. It now looks like there is a good chance they will never again be as low as that. (I should have noted this at the 200th launch, but missed it.)
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 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
The fact that you Bob of all people missed the noting the 200th launch milestone just goes to show you that we are truly living in the space age where space flight is as routine as airflight.
I would put the significant thought as the week and a half between SpaceX launches felt like a drought. Especially considering that any other company on the planet would consider a week and a half gap as a blistering pace.
Sad that an American company that showcases our dazzling technical prowess is regarded as a threat by the aged criminal class in DC.
Ray Van Dune wrote: “Sad that an American company that showcases our dazzling technical prowess is regarded as a threat by the aged criminal class in DC.”
Sad, yes, but expected. The aged criminal class in DC and elsewhere insist upon punishing the successful by taxing away their lawfully, morally, and ethically gotten gains.
Instead, these aged criminals try to play “Robin Hood” by stealing from the rich (taxing the successful) and giving to the poor (paying the lazy to continue to not work, to not contribute to society).*
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* “Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor” is a marxist misinterpretation to the Robin Hood story. Before the 1930s, the Robin Hood story was that he protected the downtrodden Saxons from the tyrannical Normans, and he stole from the corrupt in order to pay the ransom for King Richard. Watch Errol Flynn’s “The Adventures Of Robin Hood” again.