SpaceChampion

A quick google says 6 or 7 seasons.

At this point, don't you want them scared off?

or they've become Reavers from Firefly / Serenity.

If what is necessary means you can leave out things needed for the long term plans, then: getting Starship to mars -> orbital refueling getting Starship back from mars -> fuel production on mars from frozen and atmospheric sources of CO2 and water. getting the humans inside Starship to mars -> life support in space (some of it can be scaled up from Dragon) keeping the humans inside Starship alive on the surface of mars -> life support on mars the last could involve landing near a source of ice to use to make drinking water and breathable oxygen, or they could plan to cache enough of that with prior cargo ships (along with the food, medicine, and other consumables). What SpaceX engineers have said is that the first missions won't need totally closed-loop recycling of air and water. The benefit of taking 100 to 200 tons per cargo delivery is you have a lot of mass to use for consumables.

Update from NASA regarding the Artemis Program: * Artemis 2 (the four-person crewed circumnavigation of the Moon) will be delayed to NET September 2025 * Artemis 3 (landing the crewed Starship HLS) postponed to NET September 2026 - the reasons for the delays on NASA's side of the equation is that there were 3 issues found: 1) unwanted erosion of Orion's heat shield was seen in the Artemis 1 mission back in Dec 2022. 2) issues found in the life support circuitry. 3) issues found in Orion's electrical systems found in various scenarios of the launch abort sequence. Probably would work just fine but might not maintain power margins needed from separation all the way to touchdown.

Update from SpaceX: * reason for the IFT-2 Starship RUD traced to when they vented extra oxygen that wasn't needed since Starship wasn't carrying a payload to orbit. If they had been carrying a payload, and thus didn't dump the oxygen, they would have made it to orbit. * expected to get to orbit with IFT-3, aiming for mid February. * Sounds like carrying the new Starlink v.3 as payload, and ejecting them while on a suborbital trajectory to Hawaii, but apparently still high enough to deploy the Starlink into proper orbit. * want to solve orbital refueling this year, but likelier next year. Will perform an inter-tank (still within a single vehicle) propellant transfer for NASA on IFT-3. About 10 tons of oxygen from the header tank (containing LOX used for landing) to the main tank, and back again. * plan to test the payload door in this next launch as well. * and do a zero G burn of the vacuum Raptors for the first time. * with Starship there is a path to 200t to orbit with full reusability. * Aiming for up to 150 orbital launches in 2024 * Qualifying Falcon 9 boosters for reuse on up to 40 flights each * Demonstrated 3-day launchpad turnaround, aiming for under 24 hours by the end of this year * Shipped the 4th generation Starlink Terminal and introducing Starlink Mini later this year that "can fit in a backpack." * Starlink V2 mini sats: upgraded from 88TB/s to 165TB/s . * Building a second Starship tower in Texas.

That Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 1 finale was fun:

I hope this is true.

Yes, that definitely was incorrect. Tense though! Surprised they didn't kill off someone in that fight.

Ed Broadbent died.

Terry Bisson died yesterday at 81. https://boingboing.net/2024/01/11/science-fiction-author-terry-bisson-dead-at-81.html

Watch the teaser on Netflix for the english version https://www.netflix.com/watch/81745051

I think it's a continuation of their ire since her tour started because she tells her fans to register to vote, and actually set up booths at every one of her concerts to register people.

I Found David Lynch’s Lost Dune II Script https://www.wired.com/story/david-lynch-dune-sequel-script-unearthed/ wtf:

Seems like this will be the first time in Hollywood history the top billed actor on a live action movie will be mainly a voiceover, assuming Pedro Pascal is not going to be on set all that much.

Not a surprise, Ahsoka renewed for a second season.

Really clean first launch of Vulcan, but unfortunately the Peregrine lander is having issues with a critical loss of fuel. It likely will be unable to land.

ULA is attempting to launch their Vulcan rocket for the first time in about 40 minutes... 2:18 AM EST, January 8, 2024. The Vulcan is just the first stage, using Blue Origin's BE-4 methalox enginess, while the upper stage is ULA's Centaur. This is called the Certification-1 mission, and it'll have payloads -- the first is the Peregrine Lunar lander for Astrobotic, in fulfillment of their NASA contract in the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Peregrine itself is carrying 20 payloads to the lunar surface. Astrobotic aims to be a shipping company like a Fed-Ex for the Moon. The second is Celestis Memorial Spaceflights deep space Voyager mission known as the Enterprise Flight -- sending ashes to the moon to spread human remains... I have questions about that, but it's late. More details: https://www.ulalaunch.com/missions/next-launch/vulcan-cert-1 Launch stream: