Lifeboat Foundation

NASA really doesn’t want SpaceX’s Starship to blow up on the launch pad at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Reuters reports — a potential disaster so severe it could cut off the United States from accessing the International Space Station.

The facilities in question, Launch Complex 39A, served as NASA’s “Moonport” to deliver astronauts to the lunar surface during the Apollo program. Now, it’s the only launch pad capable of sending astronauts to the ISS — on board SpaceX’s much smaller Crew Dragon spacecraft — from US soil.

Now, SpaceX wants to pick up where NASA left off in the 1970s and return astronauts to the Moon in the upcoming years with its nearly 400-feet-tall Starship and Super Heavy booster stack. But the risk catastrophe, it terms out, is palpable.

FAA to require SpaceX to write a report of the events of the Mexican and Civil Wars.

If people are wondering why the USA rarely has big construction projects anymore, the FAA is requiring that SpaceX write a report of the events of the Mexican and Civil Wars.

From the text: “The company will also contribute to local education and preservation efforts — including preparing a historical context report of the events of the Mexican War and the Civil War that took place in the area as well as replacing missing ornaments on a local historical marker.”

Continue reading “FAA requires SpaceX to make environmental adjustments to move forward with its Starship program in Texas” »

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., better known as SpaceX, has pulled in another $1.7 billion in equity funding, according to a filing Monday.

Privately held SpaceX, led by Tesla Inc. TSLA,-7.10% Chief Executive Elon Musk, sold about $1.68 billion in new equity in a $1.72 billion offering, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The first sales occurred late last month, it said.

Starship launches finally approved by FAA!

The FAA is expected to release the result of the Starbase environmental assessment for orbital Starship launches at 2 pm Eastern, per Joey Roulette. We will provide live analysis and reaction to the outcome.

Covering interstellar distances rapidly may still be a distant dream, but it’s now getting unprecedented financial support.

A nonprofit called the Limitless Space Institute, co-founded by former NASA warp drive researcher Harold “Sonny” White and retired astronaut Brian Kelly in 2020, is generating enough excitement — and funding — for the concept that it’s started giving out educational and research grants to schools and universities, as detailed by Universe Today.

The Institute, whose mission statement is to “inspire and educate the next generation to travel beyond our solar system and support the research and development of enabling technologies,” has even picked up some increasingly mainstream support. Take Gwynne Shotwell, the chief operations officer and second-in-command of SpaceX, who joined as an independent advisor in April, joining other bigshots in the aerospace sector including several retired astronauts involved with the venture.

In early June, the main body of NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper spacecraft completed construction and was shipped to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California soon after. The arrival of Europa Clipper’s main body marks a major milestone in the construction of the spacecraft and shows that the spacecraft and its teams are on track for a launch in 2024.

“It’s an exciting time for the whole project team and a huge milestone. This delivery brings us one step closer to launch and the Europa Clipper science investigation,” said Europa Clipper project manager Jordan Evans of JPL.

Continue reading “Europa Clipper’s main body complete, teams continue work toward 2024 launch” »

Ford is a mediocre car company. Or at least, it can be at times, especially these days. But there was a time, years and years ago, when Ford dipped their fingers into many other fields besides automotive.