David G Foot @DFootless

@JeffBezos @blueorigin Very sad. Space exploration will require multiple players from many different disciplines in order to become a multi planetary species. I am confident however that humanity will prevail in the end though, despite setbacks along the way!

@SpaceX just posted this video clip showing Ship 39 in the landing burn and splashdown in the Indian Ocean. Its great, but worthy of some analysis ... and this is mine and I know some will have their own take, which is great but I hope this is helpful for discussion. Based on the ship 39 Raptor Vacuum (RVAC) engine failure on ascent, the inability of demonstrating a de-orbit burn with the new V3 engines, and this wildly and marginally controlled landing burn, pirouette, and non-stabilized, not quite vertical attitude on splashdown (despite being very close to being on target and perhaps partly planned for data), I am convinced the next flight will be a repeat profile with another suborbital trajectory and splashdown in the Indian Ocean. During the atmospheric reentry, the ship modified it's profile to compensate for a not-quite-nominal suborbital insertion with lower perigee and a subsequent trajectory slightly short of the intended landing location in the Indian Ocean. This was caused by the loss of the one RVAC, the longer burn by the other 3 engines to compensate, and higher header tank fuel load due to the lack of reentry burn (demo). I also think there was likely some propellant leakage, possibly due to damage on the RVAC. Ship 39 was able to skip along in the atmosphere at about 68-70 Km in altitude (using a lower Angle of Attack or AOA), generating enough lift to even gain some altitude for awhile while extending its downrange flight via aerodynamics. This reentry profile and use of aerodynamic lift compensation is actually great data and experience with the capabilities of the ship for SpaceX, something they may not have had much data on so will help to validate their computational analysis and expand the flight envelope and options for Starship going forward. SpaceX needs to be able to demonstrate high confidence in the terminal phase of flight of the Starship before attempting a catch attempt. IMHO I think Flight 13 will definitely be a repeat profile as for Flight 12, Flight 13 will not include a Booster catch attempt but still suborbital flight for the ship, and Flight 14 might be a booster catch attempt and include the first orbital flight for ship, but with a water landing again (perhaps in the Pacific Ocean or off shore in the Gulf, and it won't be until Flight 15 or 16 at the earliest before we might see a ship catch attempt. If Flight 13 happens by August, and then 1 month between flights after that, then I think we won's see the first ship catch attempt until NET November or December of this year. Success, but room for iteration and improvement ... a good foundation to build on for V3, but work yet ahead. I am optimistic @SpaceX and the team have the data they need now and will be ready for Flight 13 with even better results in the next couple of months. But, as always, we shall see and I look forward to others take on this too.

SpaceX @SpaceX

3 weeks ago

Starship flip and landing burn at the end of its twelfth flight test

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A farmer dies in April 2026. His son inherits the farm. The farm has been in the family since 1847. The farm consists of: 300 acres of grazing pasture, a farmhouse built in 1892, a barn, a milking parlour, two tractors of varying ages, a Land Rover that runs about 70% of the time, and a herd of 180 Hereford-cross cattle. On paper, the farm is worth approximately £3.2 million. This is because land near him has been bought recently by a London hedge fund looking for carbon credits, which has dragged the comparable value of every field within forty miles upward to a number nobody local can justify. In cash, the farm produces a profit of about £28,000 a year in a good year. In a bad year it loses money. The son also works as a fencing contractor three days a week to keep the operation viable. The inheritance tax bill on a £3.2 million estate, even at the reduced 20% rate, comes to approximately £140,000 after the increased threshold is applied. The son does not have £140,000. The son has never had £140,000. The son has £4,200 in his current account and an overdraft. The son sells 60 acres to a developer to pay the tax. The developer puts solar panels on the 60 acres. The remaining herd cannot be sustained on the reduced land. The herd is sold. The barn becomes a holiday let. A different family eats Brazilian beef this Christmas without knowing why the price went up. The Treasury collects £140,000. The land never produces British food again.

Excellent - well done @RocketLab Nice to hear music by @Erdayastronaut too!

Rocket Lab @RocketLab

3 weeks ago

LIFTOFF! Electron is on its way to space once again for @synspective🚀

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As a Soviet historian who has spent years writing about the extreme, repressive control Soviet Communism exercised over its unfortunate citizens, I find it really hard to bring a similar accusation against the Labour government and Keir Starmer. But I’m finding it increasingly difficult to avoid that conclusion. We have no Gulag or death penalty, admittedly, but what Labour and the old Soviet regime do have in common is the arrogant belief that they alone hold the moral high ground and that this entitles them to the total control over all those who do not share their worldview. And like the Soviets of old their tools of control are the same… - legislation and co-opted courts and civil service to apply it - the policing of dissent, by hate crime orders, arrests (@glinner), the long term seizure of electronic appliances (@CF_Farrow) to intimidate even those against whom no charges are finally brought. - controlling free speech (12,000 arrests annually for social media posts in 2025). George Orwell’s ‘thought crime’ persecution has become a reality under Labour. - framing dissent (the Unite the Kingdom participants) as racism and far right fascism (Stalin started that in the days when Labour was his captive party, the 1930s, and ‘fascist’ has remained their favoured mantra ever since) - attacking and weakening the family (because the family is so often a place where small ‘c’ conservative values are transmitted down the generations), including the promotion of trans ideology to confuse children in their understanding of the roles of men and women, mothers and fathers. In their eyes women can have penises and ‘heteronormativity’ must be ‘smashed’. - education, wrested as Marx decreed, from the middle class (private schools and VAT), and used as a vehicle for the state propagandising of children and youth at their most vulnerable age. … and much more. In short, I can reach no other conclusion. Under Labour, Britain is becoming a repressive state which is, incredibly, echoing the very characteristics of repression that any former resident of the Soviet Union or its satellite states would recognise today (and they do and tell us so) And with every opportunity Keir Starmer has to rein that in, he instead doubles down. Month by month things get worse. This is 2026. I can’t believe what I am seeing. Or what I’m saying. But, yes, it is going on. And only a majority government of either Tories or Reform (and I do have reservations about both) of a coalition of two can reverse this. … or we are sunk

Bernie @Artemisfornow

a year ago

🚨 RESPECT ORDERS - You don’t need to break the law to be criminalised in Britain. You just need to annoy the wrong person. The government is pushing through something called a Respect Order, part of the new Crime and Policing Bill now moving through Parliament. Respect Orders

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If British jews are to be held responsible for what happens in Gaza...then by the same reasoning British Muslims should be held responsible for the massacres of Christians by Muslims in Nigeria

@elonmusk Have you watched the video by Leonard Susskind where he explains that returning from Mars is not feasible using current technologies?

Falcon Heavy’s side boosters have landed on LZ-2 and LZ-40!

@RafHM Wonderful lady!

@Gentleman_Ways Completely agree 👍

@XFreeze @elonmusk Where do you estimate we are at the moment on the Kardashev scale? 0.8 perhaps?

@elonmusk Does Grok have the same issue - hopefully not as I use it every day!

@MaryRoseMuseum I remember the giant crane. Wasn’t it called Tog Mor?

Public Notice A @FarehamBC vehicle has been stolen. It's a transit van with caged rear. Reg: CV22 HSO. Police have been informed. If you see it, don't approach - report to Police immediately. Remain alert - could be misused or enable individuals to masquerade as Council officers.

@elonmusk Do you mean interstage?

England will be 1100 years old next summer. Still time to commission a massive bronze of Athelstan. We can put it on the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square, thus sparing ourselves many more decades of rotating modernist nonsense.

Ike Ijeh @ikeijeh

5 months ago

The memorial being equestrian isn't the problem, its declinist lack of ambition is. The US is building a huge arch for its 250th birthday, we're building a modest statue for world history's longest-serving woman ruler. It should be a 70m-tall architectural monument in Green Park.

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@regentcruises Looking forward to a four day land program in Rome after our cruise on Voyager in April. We also have a land program in Panama ahead of our cruise on Prestige in February 2027.

Remembering Queen Elizabeth II, 1926-2022

"Inflation rise takes the UK closer to debt-crisis cliff edge" – my latest @Telegraph column Britain is heading for a very serious fiscal crisis – not unlike the 1976 fiasco which saw this country go "cap in hand" to the International Monetary Fund for a bail-out. Government borrowing costs are now higher than they were in 1998 - but the national debt is some 3-times bigger as a share of GDP than it was back then. That's why the government's debt interest bill is now so massive – twice what we spend on defence each year, more than we spend on schools. PLUS: Over two-thirds of the money the government is borrowing each year is now being spent on interest payments on already outstanding debt. AND: The UK's uniquely high share of "index-linked" debt – with interest payments that go up with RPI inflation – means that as inflation rises, our already crippling debt service costs rise even more. The vast majority of our political and media class are either incapable of understanding the now brightly-flashing warning signs - signs I have outlined in the Telegraph and elsewhere many, many times – or are determined to ignore them if they do. What I am saying isn't party political, nor about left and right or who has the right "values". It's about trying to avert a major fiscal meltdown and related systemic crisis - which will cause huge economic and societal damage, and during which the least well off will suffer most. Please read and share this thread 🧵1/11 telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/…

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