Beyond Rockets: The Andromeda Dreamer Gently Pirouettes into Space
For 60 years we’ve reached orbit on chemical rockets — controlled chaos transmuted into mach diamonds. Stunning when they work, devastating when they fail.
Space
Spaceflight, science, and orbital notes
Latest posts
The Old Internet Strikes Back: Why WikiCritic Matters
WikiCritic revives the old internet: challenging Wikipedia’s ideological gatekeeping through transparent reviews, open competition, and genuine pluralism.
The Rocket Rivalry That Isn’t a Feud
Musk’s support for Blue Origin shows that space rivalry is not hatred: shared setbacks, resilient competition and hard-earned learning move humanity forward.
How Many Broken Tiles Can Starship Afford?
Flight 13 exposed Starship’s heat-shield challenge. A break-even model shows when tile repairs, turnaround and payload make reuse beat expendable rockets.
When the Pixels Start Having Opinions
If artificial evolution creates conscious life, pixels become persons - and programmers become accidental gods responsible for the worlds they create.
Starship 13 and the Strange Triumph of Not Exploding
Starship 13 deployed 20 real satellites, restarted a Raptor and landed intact; Super Heavy nailed ascent and boostback, though its final splashdown was hard.
Beyond Throwaway Spacecraft: Why Satellite Servicing Matters
Northrop Grumman’s robotic servicer could extend satellite lifespans, cut waste and costs, but must overcome major technical, legal and economic challenges.
Special Delivery: One Used Falcon 9 Stage, Destination Moon
On August 5, the Moon is expected to receive four tonnes of human engineering at 2.43 kilometres per second. No signature will be required.
The Rocket, the Share Price, and the Rest of Earth
Can Starship Flight 13 lift SpaceX’s valuation as well as its ambitions? A look at Starlink, orbital AI, Mars—and market expectations.
The Republic of Tiny Flashes
From the ISS, Fourth of July fireworks become tiny flashes on Earth’s night side - visible, beautiful, and humblingly unresolved.
The Atomic Future Germany Refuses to See
Small nuclear reactors may power the AI age, while Germany’s nuclear taboo risks turning an industrial nation into a spectator of its own future.
The Martian Ministry of Silly Walks
Wheels, legs, tracks, hoppers and flying scouts: a comic look at why Mars robots still roll, and why Optimus may be the wrong animal.
The Ministry Has Reached the Driver’s Seat
Europe should test Tesla FSD with rigor, not ritual: road safety needs evidence, transparency and lawful authority, not NGOs mistaking advocacy for approval.
The Moon Has No HR Department
The Moon does not care about symbolic balance sheets. It only asks whether the spacecraft works and the crew belongs there.
The Devil Wears a Cooling Loop
Prada and Axiom turn lunar fashion into survival tech: not moon couture, but cooling loops, seams, and elegance against vacuum, proving fit is life support.
The Game Was on the Box
Early game box art wasn’t advertising - it was outsourced imagination. The pixels were tiny. The worlds in players’ heads were enormous.
The Internet Archive at Thirty: In Praise of the Untidy Memory of Civilization
Thirty years on, the Internet Archive reminds us that memory is infrastructure, not nostalgia.
Rockets Are Hard. Moral Grandstanding Is Easy.
Private space is messy, loud, and sometimes explosive. But without it, the Moon would be mostly rhetoric and Mars a screensaver.
The End of the World Is Not Just a Model
A civilization does not collapse from scarcity alone. It collapses when material fragility meets ideologies that no longer fear apocalypse.
The Tyranny of the Well-Mixed Breath
Large numbers make lovely anecdotes, but the atmosphere is not a perfectly stirred soup of immortal historical breath.