Did not enjoy the wait for AOS!

May Clipper have a boring journey.

Stunning. They have no right to make it look so easy.

I was ready to wait until Christmas for this and now I’m not emotionally prepared!

If there’s a catch attempt I’m expecting a mild success where something goes wrong (those arms sway sooo much), but I’m optimistic about Ship reentry. Going to be great.

Curious to see what happens in the Gulf given Zack Golden’s speculation from a few days ago. Are they really going to retrieve a booster that’s hundreds of meters below sea level? Feels hard.

Unfortunate for this to happen on a high profile flight, amid all the regulatory bickering.

I’m glad my concerns about these suits were overblown! They look like a big improvement over status quo.

Pretty confused about why SpaceX released this - it’s a vague, whiney, entitled message, even if they’re right!

Parts of the regulatory process are clunky, and the goals of an environmental assessment don’t always align with the goals of SpaceX - that’s the point. I’d be concerned if the company was happy with the process.

I don’t want to write an essay right now. I know it’s messy, and the process needs to improve. I just wish SpaceX had brought receipts before starting…whatever they just started.

Wasn’t expecting such beautiful shots at midnight in the desert!

This is probably going to be so boring, but I won’t be able to look away.

This is how I feel. This is a wonderful moment where a switch to Dragon is easy and safe. Starliner is probably fine, but Dragon is clearly safer right now. Who cares about ISS scheduling changes and modified Starliner certification requirements?

I just checked prediction markets and they seem to think Starliner has a 20-30% chance. I think that’s way too high.

Interesting, thanks for explaining. I agree with the aspiration but maybe not the practicality?

In a perfect world elections would be about hard policy discussions, but in 2024 policy barely matters. Campaigns don’t even release real platforms any more. The first party to take the emotion out of politics would lose horribly, because so many voters respond to it.

Personally, I also like when people acknowledge that policy discussions impact real people. I think there’s an important role for displayed genuine emotion in rational discussion.

I also don’t think that what we’re discussing is relevant to Gus Walz. We have every reason to believe that was a genuine and beautiful apolitical moment.

I don’t think I understand. Are you suggesting that it’s impossible to prepare a speech about something you care deeply about?

Or are you saying that people only cry the first time they tell an emotional story?

I’m sure there are people with those experiences, and maybe you’re one of them. If it helps, I can attest that there are “well rehearsed” stories that I’ve told dozens of times, and I still cry during each telling.

NieR: Automata

For some reason this New Scientist cartoon lives in my head. Maybe because it challenges the way I think about the future? Or maybe it’s just cute.

Original source, by Tom Gauld

Thanks so much for doing this! I almost forgot to enter.

I wonder how predictable the thrust reduction is. I would have thought they could account for this in software, but maybe there’s too much uncertainty. Or perhaps ground tests showed the seal can fail in dangerous ways.

If NASA defers to its fallback plan, flying on Dragon, it may spell the end of the Starliner program. During the development and testing of Starliner, the company has already lost $1.6 billion. Reflying a crew test flight mission, which likely would be necessary should Starliner return autonomously, would cost much more.

Through this lens, I get why they’re taking their time with the decision.

I was firmly in the “nothing is actually wrong and the media coverage is silly” camp, so this report is pretty shocking.

If there are real engineering reasons (as opposed to anxious bureaucrat ones) that Dragon needs to rescue them, this seems like one of the bigger crises in the modern era?

Will wait for more details, but clearly I was wrong about media coverage!

I won’t be using these features, but I’m not sure there’s cause for concern. The implementation seems very sensible and legitimately privacy-centric. The LLM runs locally and is meant as an very basic email proofreader. The crypto wallet is a likely an extension of the password management tech they’ve already developed, with transaction features that some people care about.

I can see why some people want these features, and I’m glad there are new alternatives.

Great points. I think my concern is that a failed catch has the potential to look very dramatic, even if nothing significant goes wrong. I worry that a lengthy investigation will be triggered. But admittedly I don’t know how that process works!

I wonder if a successful catch will be what accelerates the launch schedule.

I hope a failed catch doesn’t mean a six month pause…

They have, and that seems to be the industry standard. I don’t expect issues. But you can’t test everything in a full gravity vacuum chamber and SpaceX has never made an EVA suit before.

I’m sure the depressurization process includes tons of safety measures and tests, but I’m still creeped out by a tourist flight being this experimental!