Update on upcoming Starship/Superheavy test flights
Link here. As usual, this NASASpaceflight.com article provides an excellent overview of what SpaceX is likely to do on the next few test flights, including details about the possibility of reusing the Superheavy that was successfully recovered on the seventh flight.
And as usual, NASASpaceflight.com ignores the importance of politics and Trump’s election in changing the regulatory culture at the FAA. Just as it has made believe the Biden administration wasn’t forcing the FAA to slow-walk its license approvals to SpaceX, it is now making believe the Trump administration won’t do anything to force the FAA to speed its approvals.
We know however that it will. I fully expect that when SpaceX completes its investigation of the failures from flight 7 and describes its fixes, the FAA approval will following very quickly thereafter, within days. Under Biden that approval would still take months.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Link here. As usual, this NASASpaceflight.com article provides an excellent overview of what SpaceX is likely to do on the next few test flights, including details about the possibility of reusing the Superheavy that was successfully recovered on the seventh flight.
And as usual, NASASpaceflight.com ignores the importance of politics and Trump’s election in changing the regulatory culture at the FAA. Just as it has made believe the Biden administration wasn’t forcing the FAA to slow-walk its license approvals to SpaceX, it is now making believe the Trump administration won’t do anything to force the FAA to speed its approvals.
We know however that it will. I fully expect that when SpaceX completes its investigation of the failures from flight 7 and describes its fixes, the FAA approval will following very quickly thereafter, within days. Under Biden that approval would still take months.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
OK, it’s now official. Elon Musk CAUSED the aircraft collision in Washington last night.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/faa-chief-michael-whitaker-quit-on-jan-20-after-elon-musk-told-him-to-resign/
Without Michael Whitaker at the helm, the FAA was incapable of doing its accustomed job, and the tragedy was all but inevitable. QED, bad things happen when you elect Republicans. Remember, these people *never give up,* and they aren’t going away quietly.
Hi Bob,
This is true, but I think you’ve hit on the right way to appreciate NSF’s work: They do a solid job (honestly, better than anyone else) at covering the nuts and bolts of the progress of these programs, thoroughly and systematically; and if you just keep that in mind, it’s a great resource to always rely on. (And they deserve credit, too, for maintaining the forums, which remain one of the very best places for public discussion of space programs, even if the hand of the mods is heavy at times.)
But for policy context, you must go elsewhere.
I’m confident that most of the folks at NASA didn’t sign up just for the 9 to 5.
I’d also wager that a majority, even in management, view Musk & SpaceX rather favorably.
IOW, Ad Astra!
Richard M concluded, “But for policy context, you must go elsewhere.”
And I wonder where that “elsewhere” might be. :)
Seriously, thank you for the kind words in general.
For what it’s worth, the founder of NSF is from the UK, as are several other commentators, and several of the leading personalities are from Germany and Spain, if I recall correctly.
I assume this helps them avoid US political issues and focus on technical ones, and provide an entertaining and unabashedly techie coverage of (mostly) U.S. space efforts.
Icepilot wrote: “I’m confident that most of the folks at NASA didn’t sign up just for the 9 to 5.”
The engineers and technicians that I have worked with in the space business have been enthusiastic about exploration and advancements in space. They work long hours to make sure that probes, satellites, and launch vehicles are ready on time. I have watched several rearrange their home schedules in order to make sure that they were available to perform that one task that they were especially trained to do when the time came, and that time was coming late in the evening, after — say — the daycare closes and they have to make arrangements for someone else to pick up their kid. Launch teams may have been understaffed, as they had mostly paperwork and slower work to do between launches, so launch campaigns were long hours of hard work, resolving the unexpected bugs that seem to always crawl into the smooth-flowing processes and procedures. SpaceX’s launch crews probably don’t have as much “downtime” as at other companies, and they are probably more properly staffed, too.
Yeah. They have signed up for the whole program and its goal, not just the mere job. We do it because we think that space can make the world a better place, and we are disappointed that it is taking so long to make that happen. This is why we are so excited about this decade. We think that an enthusiastic commercial-space is finally able to do what space had promised us three-quarters of a century ago — what Congress is unwilling to let government-space to do for us.
To Richard M
NSF tries very hard to be non-partisan so to be a resource to all readers. Unlike Cowing
I know Richard M is aware of this… SpaceNews just absolutely beclowned itself.
You know, I can’t think of a space- or science-focused news site, other than this one, that isn’t explicitly far left. NSF tries to keep things tamped down but I’d say they’re about 90/10 left, both site admin and posters.
“they’re about 90/10 left, both site admin and posters”
Correct and some of the commenters appear to be lunatics.
During a live NSF YT interview with Eric Berger, I reacted in chat, politely, to a Berger criticism of Musk buying twitter. (The usual lefty refusal to consider the free-speech aspects of the buyout.) I was immediately told by the NSF hosts to sit down and shut up.
Just yesterday I posted on NSF that I thought Musk’s tweet about the Starliner astronauts was “bonkers” (anticipating by a few hours Berger’s own words) but added that I generally support Musk and Trump. Then received a quite vicious response from one of the commies. To their credit, the moderators deleted that post but locked up the thread for all but paying subscribers. So the hate continues.
Icepilot,
You would be wrong.
There’s no real difference between the Post Office and NASA or any other government agency out there.
It’;s shocking, I know. because of all the PR they put out a regular NASA employee is only into the Space program because it’s their rice bowl. The enthusiasm is pounded out of them in the first couple of years when they realize they are all part of a machine to spend tax dollars.
Handmer is great, and seems to have been somewhat red-pilled lately. He just doesn’t post often enough!
An interesting channel on YT is AnthroFuturism. Very numbers-based, focused on Lunar development.