Mariana Mazzucato, Mission Economy

At Amazon, Mariana Mazzucato, Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism.

Space-X Falcon 9 Launches 53 Starlink Satellites Into Orbit (VIDEO)

Hey, the guy bought Twitter, but as the owner of Space-X and other big properties, can he keep all his balls in the air?

WATCH:

Watch Falcon 9 launch 53 Starlink satellites to orbit → https://t.co/3Cr99l2Cre https://t.co/2SPtX3ketY

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 29, 2022

Oscar Blasts Off

Hilarious.

Call us next time you want to ride a wiener into space… pic.twitter.com/cmAnDeh6nS

— Oscar Mayer (@oscarmayer) July 21, 2021

The New Era of Space Travel

Following-up, "Jeff Bezos Blasts Into Space Aboard Blue Origin (VIDEO)."

At the Los Angeles Times, "Jeff Bezos launches new era of space travel with Blue Origin ride":

VAN HORN, Texas — The New Shepard rocket rumbled to life early Tuesday, catapulting Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and three others to the edge of space and allowing the world’s richest person to achieve a childhood dream.

Back on Earth, spaceflight enthusiasts saw the brief voyage as the realization of decades of promise — the beginning of a new era for space tourism.

“Space tourism is finally here,” said Alan Ladwig, author of the book “See You in Orbit? Our Dream of Spaceflight.” “It’s still going to be expensive, it’s still not going to be something everybody can do right away, but it’s a first step.”

Bezos’ suborbital flight — his company Blue Origin’s first crewed launch — came a little over a week after British billionaire Richard Branson along with five others boarded a space plane built by his Virgin Galactic firm and flew to the edge of space and back, making it there ahead of Bezos, who had announced his plans earlier. Virgin Galactic plans to complete two more test flights before it begins flying paying customers to space next year.

Although Blue Origin flew its first paying customer on Tuesday’s flight — 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, the son of a Dutch private equity executive and now the youngest person to go to space — it has yet to announce seat prices or additional details about its commercial operations. During a livestream of Tuesday’s launch, Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin’s director of astronaut sales, repeatedly encouraged interested customers to email the company.

Already the company is approaching $100 million in private sales, Bezos told an assembled audience of guests, employees and reporters after the launch.

An auction for a seat on Tuesday’s flight ended with a winning bid of $28 million, but the ticket holder, whose identity has not been disclosed, postponed the trip, citing scheduling conflicts, according to Blue Origin. They will fly on a future mission. (Proceeds from the auction for a spot on Tuesday’s launch went to the Club for the Future foundation, which was founded by Blue Origin and is aimed at promoting science, technology, engineering and math careers. From those proceeds, 19 nonprofit organizations were selected to receive $1-million grants.)

But suborbital flights aren’t the company’s only goal; Blue Origin plans to build a family of larger rockets that could hoist cargo, satellites and people to orbit and beyond, eventually creating an ecosystem to allow millions of people to live and work in space. Bezos has previously suggested building cylindrical habitats with artificial gravity known as O’Neill colonies, after the physicist Gerard K. O’Neill, who pioneered the idea.

“Big things start small,” Bezos said Tuesday. “We’re going to build a road to space so that our kids and their kids can build the future.”

The seeming arrival of the era of suborbital space tourism after years of hype has fueled public debate around the increasing commercialization of space and the role that billionaires play in the industry.

After his flight, Bezos thanked Amazon employees and customers, saying, “You guys paid for all this.” He has previously said he has sold about $1 billion of Amazon stock a year to fund Blue Origin...

Well, you can't say the man ain't got the money. *Shrug.*

Still more.

 

Jeff Bezos Blasts Into Space Aboard Blue Origin (VIDEO)

Absolutely spectacular:

Also, "SPACED OUT Mystery lottery winner who paid $28million to travel on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space flight is too BUSY to make trip."

PREVIOUSLY: "Richard Branson and Crew Go Weightless on Historic Virgin Galactic Space Flight (VIDEO)."

Nicholas Schmidle, Test Gods

At Amazon, 

Nicholas Schmidle, Test Gods: Virgin Galactic and the Making of a Modern Astronaut.

Richard Branson and Crew Go Weightless on Historic Virgin Galactic Space Flight (VIDEO)

So amazing --- absolutely breathtaking!

At LAT, "Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic crew go to the edge of space and back":

Richard Branson goes weightless in space and sends a message to future generations.

Read more about his voyage to the edge of space: https://t.co/hYsLFJ1sQa pic.twitter.com/i77ytElH2q

— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 11, 2021

In 2004, British billionaire Richard Branson proclaimed he would fly into space on his company’s spaceship in just three years to kick off what he hoped would become a routine travel experience, drinks and all.

Nearly 17 years after that proclamation, he finally did it.

Branson, along with five other Virgin Galactic employees — two pilots and three others who were testing parts of the in-cabin experience, including research opportunities — launched to suborbital space Sunday on the company’s first flight with a full crew aboard. The carrier aircraft with the spaceship attached to its belly took off around 7:40 a.m. Pacific time from a New Mexico spaceport near the city of Truth or Consequences.

The crewed flight marks a shift years in the making, as companies edge into launching recreational trips to space — efforts they hope will eventually prove profitable. The flashy, Branson-flavored Virgin Galactic event — with a livestream hosted by late-night host Stephen Colbert and a concert by singer Khalid — aimed to increase potential customers’ confidence and interest in the flight experience, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars for a seat.

The spaceship carrying Branson and the others detached from the carrier aircraft about 45 minutes after launch, once it reached an altitude of about 45,000 feet and a designated release point in the airspace. The ship then rocketed to suborbital space.

The craft reached a speed of Mach 3, or 2,300 mph, and a maximum altitude of 53.5 miles above the Earth. The U.S. military and NASA consider space to start at 50 miles above the Earth, though the world body governing aeronautic and astronautic records, as well as other organizations, define space as 62 miles above Earth’s surface, a designation known as the Karman line.

A livestream of the mission showed the crew floating in the cabin once the craft reached space. As the ship returned to Earth, Branson — wearing sunglasses — told viewers on the livestream that it was the “experience of a lifetime.”

The ship landed back at the spaceport around 8:40 a.m. Pacific time, about 15 minutes after it detached from the carrier aircraft. Video inside the cabin showed Branson clapping at touchdown. As he emerged from the spacecraft, he pumped both arms in the air and waved to the assembled crowd.

Branson told reporters after the flight that it was impossible to describe the experience of accelerating to Mach 3 in seven to eight seconds and that the views of the Earth were “breathtaking.”

He added that “99.9% was beyond my wildest dreams.”

“It’s so thrilling when a lifetime’s dream comes true,” said Branson, who carried to space photos of his children, a woman who died but always dreamed of going to space, and a tiny image of the head of Colbert.

The flight put Branson in space ahead of billionaire rival Jeff Bezos, who is due to launch to suborbital space July 20 in a capsule developed by his Blue Origin space company. Bezos congratulated Branson and the Virgin Galactic crew in an Instagram post Sunday, adding, “Can’t wait to join the club!”

Like Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin plans to sell tickets to tourists who want to experience a few minutes of weightlessness in suborbital space. Bezos’ company is also developing a larger rocket called New Glenn intended to launch satellites, and it had hoped to win a NASA contract with Lockheed Martin, Draper and Northrop Grumman to build a lunar lander that was instead awarded to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Sunday’s flight marks a milestone for the 17-year-old Virgin Galactic, which spent years developing its SpaceShipTwo craft and larger carrier aircraft.

The company has faced its share of setbacks...

Still more.

 

Richard Branson Blasts Into Space! (VIDEO)

Now this is something to be proud about. Civilian space travel is here. 

Branson, along with crew, successfully launched and landed Virgin Galactic's spaceship, the VMS Unity.  

At USA Today, "Virgin Galactic space plane carrying billionaire adventurer Richard Branson reaches edge of space, returns safely":

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. – Billionaire entrepreneur and adventurer Richard Branson's dream of space travel was realized and celestial tourism took a leap forward Sunday as Virgin Galactic's rocket ship reached the edge of space during a historic flight from Spaceport America.

Branson and his crew experienced about four minutes of weightlessness before their space plane smoothly glided to a runway landing. The entire trip, delayed 90 minutes because of bad weather the previous night, lasted about an hour. An ecstatic Branson hugged family and friends who greet him after landing.

"Thank you to every single person who has believed in Virgin Galactic and the team who has worked so hard to make this dream come true," Branson said after the flight. "It's 17 years of painstaking work, the occasional horrible down and large ups with it. And today was definitely the biggest up."

Branson, who turns 71 this week, and a crew of two pilots and three mission specialists were carried to an altitude of more than eight miles by the aircraft VMS Eve, named after Branson's mother. Live video then showed the space plane VSS Unity release from the mother ship's twin fuselages, using rocket power to fly to the boundary of space, more than 50 miles above the Earth.

Tributes – and criticism – rolled in on social media...

 

Trump Opens Space for Business

From Glenn Reynolds, "IT’S PAYWALLED, BUT I’VE GOT A PIECE IN THE WSJ WITH TAYLOR DINERMAN ON THE TRUMP SPACE PUSH: Trump Opens Outer Space for Business: An executive order and a prospective treaty aim to make celestial mining an attractive investment":

President Trump acted two weeks ago to bring about the kind of 21st century that we expected in the 20th. If all goes well, it will open the way for mankind to become a true “multiplanet species,” as Elon Musk puts it.

An April 6 executive order, “Encouraging International Support for the Recovery and Use of Space Resources,” is meant to spur a new industry: the extraction and processing of resources from the moon and asteroids to facilitate settlement of the solar system. With this order, Mr. Trump ended an era of legal uncertainty in outer space and laid the foundation for international cooperation on American terms.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration plans a manned moon mission in 2024, followed by a “sustained lunar presence.” The U.S. National Space Council, led by Vice President Mike Pence, has been quietly working on an international agreement known as the Artemis Accords, which would clarify the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and provide a solid basis for private enterprise to operate on the moon, Mars and beyond.

The Outer Space Treaty, to which the U.S. and all other major countries are parties, bars “national appropriation” and sovereignty over the moon and other so-called celestial bodies, declaring that they “shall be the province of all mankind.” Some have read into that provision a prohibition on the private appropriation of resources. The executive order rejects that position: “Outer space is a legally and physically unique domain of human activity, and the United States does not view it as a global commons.” . . .

The Trump order also rejects the 1979 Moon Treaty, which was intended to supplant the Outer Space Treaty. The Moon Treaty purports to ban private exploitation of space resources and mandate that any such activity take place under the supervision of an international authority with a rake-off going to Third World governments. President Carter initially supported the pact, but facing popular opposition, the Senate never took up ratification. Mr. Trump’s statement specifically notes that only 17 of the 95 members of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space have ratified the Moon Treaty. None have a major space program.

As a follow up to the executive order, the administration has been quietly preparing the Artemis Accords, which it plans to present first to America’s partners on the International Space Station—Canada, Europe, Japan and Russia—and later to other nations. Parties would “affirm that the extraction and utilization of space resources does not constitute national appropriation under Article 2 of the Outer Space Treaty.” . . .

I love the smell of sovereignty in the morning.

Still more at the link.

Apollo 11 Still Resonates

At LAT, "Column One: 50 years after Apollo 11, the moon’s allure still resonates."

Who Will Be the First Woman on the Moon?

Nothing against the ladies, but in this day and age, it just can't be another man that goes up and sets foot.

Nope, that'd be misogynist.

At the L.A. Times, "Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon. Who will be the first woman?"

Robert Zubrin, The Case for Space

It's out May 14th, at Amazon, Robert Zubrin, The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility.

Expect Big Economic Lift-Off from President Trump's 'Space Force' (VIDEO)

Hey, leftists even like Trump's plan for a "space force."

And while we're at it, perhaps we could launch a few members of the anti-Trump "resistance" into outer space. They'd be good target practice for the all-American intergalactic Air Force, lol.

Trump's "space force" could propel Southern California's aerospace industry https://t.co/uAIub478ij pic.twitter.com/CwTGejOwyh

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) September 2, 2018

At LAT, "Trump's 'space force' could propel Southern California's aerospace industry":

One of the big winners from President Trump’s push for a new military service called “space force” may be one of his least favorite places — California.

Once the launchpad of the nation’s aerospace industry, Southern California stands to see a surge in government and industry jobs and billions of dollars in contracts for satellites and other technology if Congress approves the space force when it takes up the proposal next year, industry experts and former military officials said.

“You can’t just go out in the middle of Iowa and try to create a center for space,” said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), a retired Air Force officer. “So Southern California is very well situated” to get substantial benefits.

The extent of the benefits would depend on where the headquarters is located, how much is spent on new satellites and other space systems, and how many people and programs now in the Air Force and other existing armed services might be shifted to the new force.

Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis said Tuesday that planners have just begun preparing cost estimates. “We’ve already commenced the effort, but I don’t want to give you an off-the-cuff number,” Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon.

The biggest uncertainty is whether Trump or Congress would try to direct the rewards to other states. The president has visited California only once since taking office, and his administration has warred with Sacramento on fuel efficiency standards, clean air regulations, firefighting techniques and more.

“Southern California remains the largest concentration of space technology, including military space technology, in the United States,” said Loren Thompson, aerospace analyst with the Lexington Institute think tank, which receives money from major industry players, including Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp.

“But when you set up a new military service, you increase the impact of politics in ways that might not necessarily be good for California,” he added.

Colorado and Florida, which also boast extensive civilian and military aerospace facilities, could be big winners too.

The White House says it will unveil its plan for a space force early next year. For now, the Pentagon is taking interim steps, including creation of a Space Command in the Air Force to centralize planning for war fighting in space.

Congressional approval of Trump’s idea for a futuristic armed force for space is by no means certain. Key lawmakers, some Pentagon officials and senior commanders, especially in the Air Force, fear losing responsibility and budgetary authority for space...

More.

Belgium Shining Bright from Space

A great piece, which points out Belgium's environmental hypocrisy.

Beautiful photography too. Absolutely astonishing.

At NYT:

A Photo From Space Shows Belgium Shining Bright, and Social Media Lights Up. https://t.co/clqnd3Pe0b

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) May 12, 2017

Hubble Space Telescope Watches Mars (VIDEO)

This is fantastic!

At NASA, on Twitter, ".@NASA_Hubble watches as Mars moves to opposition on 5/22; when it lines up with Earth & sun..."

And watch:

Space Shuttle External Tank Makes Long Slow Trip Through Streets of Los Angeles (VIDEO)

Following-up from previously, "Space Shuttle External Tank Arrives in Marina del Rey (VIDEO)."

Heh, this is really cool.

At LAist, "Photos: Giant Space Shuttle Fuel Tank Makes Its Way Through the Streets of L.A."

And check California Science Center on Twitter.

Space Shuttle External Tank Arrives in Marina del Rey (VIDEO)

The tank is slated to join the Space Shuttle Endeavor at the California Science Center.

And come to think of it, I need to go see that exhibition, dang.

At LAT, "Giant space shuttle tank arrives in L.A. by sea."

And watch, via CBS News 2 Los Angeles:

'Game of Thrones' Actress Samantha Bentley 'Dying Monkey' Protest Outside Russian Embassy in London (VIDEO)

I guess Russia's taking a monkey to space for scientific research, and that's sent the far-left PETA loons into fits of derangement.

At the PETA homepage, "PHOTOS: ‘Dying Monkey’ Begs Russia Not to Send Primates to Mars":

A striking protest outside the Russian Embassy in London today urged Russia’s space agency to abandon its unethical “monkeys on Mars” mission.

And, watch, at Ruptly, "U.K.: Game of Thrones Actress Strips Naked to Protest Russian Space Monkeys."

SpaceX Nails Falcon 9 Landing (VIDEO)

At the Sacramento Bee, "SpaceX launches rocket 6 months after accident, then lands."

NASA Detects Liquid Water on Mars (VIDEO)

Following-up from yesterday, "Life on Mars?"

At Bloomberg, "Scientists confirm that strange streaks on the Red Planet are formed by flowing water."