SpaceChampion

FAA still needs to approve launching Starship & Super Heavy to orbit before the full stack can be launched, which could take months. Bringing Booster 4 to the orbital launch mount is likely just for static fire tests and other tests like for pressurization. But once again FAA is going to look obstructive if the delay is very long -- so it might be to encourage them to speed up too.

It's crazy how fast SpaceX is doing things. Let's see what they have by their self-imposed deadline in three days...

Has any employer been sued yet for allowing non-vaccinated employees to come to work?

This thread could be subtitled H8te Watching

No joy for Blue Origin or Dynetics, protest dismissed. SpaceX can now go ahead and working on necessary modifications to Starship for the landing humans on the Moon for the first time in 50 years. https://www.gao.gov/press-release/statement-blue-origin-dynetics-decision?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=gaolegal

Yeah, I was just reading that. It's wild!

As long as you don't mention anything about Patrick Swayze to him, he can't find you here.

Boeing attempting a do-over of the launch of its Starliner capsule Friday at 2:53PM ET. This was the other capsule NASA contracted (at twice the cost!) to deliver astronauts to ISS. In it's first launch attempt a year and half ago it fail to make it to the space station due to a software problem. No humans aboard. Just trying to make it this time, conduct a mission to ISS and back successfully before they will be certified by NASA to fly astronauts.

The answer to the second question is that he's tried to buy enough support in Congress to apply political pressure on NASA, not sure if that's enough to get his way this time. It's hard to read him when his stated motivations are so at odds with slow and disappointing performance of his space company. But I think he's been consistent with the tactics he's used at Amazon.

The debut writer was selected: Excerpt:

Meanwhile rumour is Musk is calling all hands on deck for the orbital launch attempt of Starship While Musk is always in a rush, at a guess this might have to do with launching something to orbit before NASA finishes the Lunar Landing development contract protest review. Something like 200 employees from Florida and California are converging on Starbase to lend them hands. I'd expect they're working there in shifts 24/7. Booster 3 (formerly BN3 -- i wish Elon would stop changing the designation system!) is not going to be used for the orbital attempt as previously planned. I suppose they found another step they needed to do first. Booster 4 will be the one paired with Starship SN20 for a full stack launch. Booster 3 did undergo a static fire last week with 3 engines for 2 seconds, and Musk talked about doing another one with 9 engines, but the same source above says all work on Booster 3 has stopped. We'll see what happens in 10 days.