Hey, dude.

“Bureaucrats control the banking system,…”

Not the Moon-Mars banking system.

The beauty is beautiful.

To be rid of these rats is its own reward.

https://x.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1844036675435213016

Also intriguingly, the latest updated statement issued by the FAA no longer mentions the late November target date.

https://x.com/BCCarCounters/status/1843749799604170883

They don’t have a standing army, nor a police force. All they have is attitude.

Their rules, not our’s.

Eph, in a round-about way, off and die, swampy.

“One of the key upgrades on Starship ahead of flight was a complete rework of its heatshield, with SpaceX technicians spending more than 12,000 hours replacing the entire thermal protection system with newer-generation tiles, a backup ablative layer, and additional protections between the flap structures. This massive effort, along with updates to the ship’s operations and software for reentry and landing burn, will look to improve upon the previous flight and bring Starship to a soft splashdown at the target area in the Indian Ocean.”

How long, exactly, did it take SpaceX to accomplish a “complete rework” of Starship’s heatshield and thermal protection system in time for this upcoming launch? Contrast this to the still unresolved questions abut Orion’s heat shield and NASA’s — an agency “unburdened” by the concepts of time or cost — attempts to find a solution to the problem. Not much more to be said, actually.

Per sippin_bourbon’s comment, perhaps one person in ten thousand might think about voting against the Biden Administration in order to vouchsafe a successful American space program, but — yes — that is truly what this election is all about. Likewise, whether or not we continue the Founders’ experiment with the America Republic and the rights of man. As it is, all of the truly important things* will be decided on the basis of people’s emotional responses to the candidates, pocketbook issues, and the effectiveness of the mountain of propaganda that gets spewed. This is what happens when civics and citizenship are ignored for decades and people seek only convenience, immediate gratification, and following the herd. Cf, the Fourth Turning and the looming crisis before us.

*As outlined by Tucker Carlson in this address: https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-wisconsin-speech-

“It’s Biden. A friend of mine worked at the main FAA office in DC for a couple of years. It’s highly political, very corrupt, and the people working there are all pretty much evil.”

But then again she could be the one slowing down these launches just to save the planet and keep the environmentalists on her side.

I also wonder if this is not Musk playing a bit of politics also:
1 He wants to launch.
2 He is ready to launch.
3 America, look how your federal government gets in the way.
4 VOTE FOR CHANGE

All he needs to do is revise the primary objective of Starship/Superheavy to that of the first launch platform to take an illegal alien to outer space.

SpaceX is sending out notices about press access for camera setup, filing for NOTAMs, etc., which sure seems a bit beyond “we’re just applying pressure on the FAA.” They wouldn’t want to risk annoying their press contacts I would assume.

As always, I bet there is a big disconnect between the actual workers at the FAA who do the work and interact with SpaceX and seem to actually be pretty reasonable, and the higher level DC folks who seem to be lashing out in desperation of late.