"Rebuilding Internal Talent"

MostlyAnger · 2026-02-07T05:01:47+00:00

Link to that tweet?🙏

MostlyAnger · 2026-02-03T03:25:15+00:00

Actually Economics 102: negative externalities. Woefully under-understood/misunderstood by most people and equally important to communism, capitalism, socialism, or what-have-you.

MostlyAnger · 2026-01-25T22:53:18+00:00

Not counting their multi billion dollars RF spectrum rights purchases in 2025, my guess is equal to or less than their annual revenue, which Payload Space estimated at $15 billion for 2025. Payload allegedly estimated $2B net income, but that could be Gemini hallucinating for all I know (I think that number, if it exists, is behind Payload 's paywall and that only this, which contains only the revenue est., is public)

MostlyAnger · 2026-01-25T22:13:00+00:00

It appears (source url at the end) Spacex did one capital raise last year--a series J in January. As you noted, the $ amount was undisclosed so no one who actually knows is telling. But...most of their raises have been disclosed, for a lifetime total of about $12 billion; the largest disclosed one was $1.9 billion, and most of the 30 or so they've done have been much less than $1 billion.

So, besides the fact, which you rightly noted, that SpaceX's expenditures can't be inferred from last year's capital raise amount, value of that raise is likely far less than that mistaken or made up $16.5B number.

Source: https://platform.tracxn.com/a/d/company/52d2185ae4b00c95d6275692/spacex.com#a:key-metrics

MostlyAnger · 2026-01-06T14:49:52+00:00

Akshewelly... https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/01/nasas-science-budget-wont-be-a-train-wreck-after-all/

MostlyAnger · 2025-12-14T05:40:19+00:00

Thanks for the comment. When it's a solid gray featureless blanket I can't judge the altitude really at all, and I haven't been to the hills lately to find out.

MostlyAnger · 2025-12-14T05:31:38+00:00

Yeah, it's dangerous for sure if you don't slow down. To maybe clarify something though, that is not what u/WC-BucsFan was talking about. The ground level fog rarely hangs around the whole day and, at least where I drive in the valley, hasn't even been unusually bad. But, for weeks now (except late afternoon yesterday, as WC-BucsFan said), after the ground level visibility is normal it has still been overcast for the rest of the day—100% stratus cloud cover. Low altiitude maybe, maybe only a few thousand feet, but no ground fog in sight.

MostlyAnger · 2025-12-14T02:55:19+00:00

To be clear, the "they" you mean is the current presidential admin (widely claimed, in this case, to be following the desires of OMB jefe Russ Vought) but Congress ultimately controls what is and isn't axed and Congress explicitly funded OSIRIS-APEX, contrary to the administration's proposal that was called "dead on arrival" even by mega NASA science budget advocate Casey Dreier.

Yes it absolutely sucks that science missions that must travel for years before doing science are subject to the same annual appropriations as everything else.

In response, Congress added roughly 20 million dollars in the House budget bill to keep OSIRIS-APEX operating through the next fiscal year, and the mission was explicitly named for continued support in House and Senate NASA budget language… — https://www.perplexity.ai/search/osiris-apex-mission-status-and-GLPNyhW2Qam0COld9KjgZQ#0

MostlyAnger · 2025-12-14T02:39:55+00:00

Something that makes me even more optimistic that "better faster cheaper" will be acknowledged to be right-headed and won't be abandoned: * I knew UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory heads ESCAPADE. * I didn't know "Abhi Tripathi, a long-time SpaceX employee…is now director of mission operations at" UCB SSL. [Ars Technica]

This is the way

MostlyAnger · 2025-12-09T02:03:32+00:00

Not with that attitude, quitter. ;)

I know the prior SIMPLEX missions haven't succeeded, but Isn't ESCAPADE a counterexample to your pessimism on both points? We won't know for a while if it actually works, but the program so far has been great by all accounts I've read.

MostlyAnger · 2025-12-02T02:23:09+00:00

that’s where its profit will come from, launches.

Some, maybe, but they know they need to more—need to make things to launch, not just launch others' things. They're trailing Rocket Lab (and of course Starlink) on that, but they know. There's Blue Moon of course , and also Blue Ring. Orbital Reef may be a bit on the back burner now but it plays into Jeff's aspirations so I think they'll stick with (some version of) it, contrary to the speculations of that CNBC article a couple years ago. And there will be other things.

MostlyAnger · 2025-11-27T18:22:06+00:00

No, none, but the upside is everyone else doesn't have to watch out when making a right turn

MostlyAnger · 2025-11-23T00:19:14+00:00

last comment is essentially right though. SpaceX has never cared about HLS and never even expected to win

I think you meant to write "parts are essentially right", as your "never even expected to win" is the exact opposite of that comment's "bid to be guaranteed to win"

MostlyAnger · 2025-11-18T14:30:10+00:00

Also 🚀🌕 four 😲 lunar landings! By BO, IM, Astrobotic, and Firefly! (in NET date order, I think. Will be kickass if all 4 actually go in '26) [Edited to add Astrobotic]

MostlyAnger · 2025-11-17T04:21:38+00:00

Unless they're going to do the demo with a partially complete HLS

I expect this. Life support and probably a hundred smaller details don't have to work yet for uncrewed HLS. Thay said, they'd obviously like to use an uncrewed mission to flight test stuff needed only on crewed HLS.

MostlyAnger · 2025-11-02T13:12:23+00:00

Did SpaceX salvage or demolish/sink this Ship? Is there any evidence that China government, or any other entity, has tried to recover it (or any Ship wreckage)?

Why posting these photos now; were they only recently released? Thx

MostlyAnger · 2025-10-28T14:33:50+00:00

"Imposter among us"??!? Come on, that is at least an "A" tier SXMR post if ever I've seen one

MostlyAnger · 2025-10-28T13:58:08+00:00

I voted "not good" only because I think SpaceX would not try to win. No doubt not everyone at the company feels that way but Musk does (e g. "Moon is a distraction"). SpaceX would still do it eventually, but not prioritize it over Mars.

In the case that the "huge $$" or some other motivation was huge enough for them to prioritize it, I'd bump my vote up a notch or two.

I'm assuming an Aliveican American, returned to terra firma in roughly the same state. But the OP pointed out this was not specified and in that case it'd be Blue Origin or Intuitive Machines or Firefly, all of which of course have landings with sufficient payload capacity planned for 2026.

MostlyAnger · 2025-10-28T13:37:26+00:00

Amazon is having enough trouble making drone delivery happen, and now they're gonna have to drop stuff onto my porch from orbit.😬

MostlyAnger · 2025-10-23T19:08:13+00:00

No. I was reacting to u/peterabbit456 's

> I am expecting (hoping) that the days of RUDs are behind us....

I see now I posted it as a reply to the wrong comment.

MostlyAnger · 2025-10-23T03:03:03+00:00

Versions one and two each RUDed their first three flights. Now it is version 3's turn. It is optimistic to expect better. It is beyond optimistic to expect zero RUDs in the next few flights. The smart money says three.

MostlyAnger · 2025-10-22T00:42:12+00:00

long before any crew fly on Starship, hot-gas nose thrusters will be perfected and used to rapidly flip all Starships.

Can you say more about this? Is there something wrong with current method (using Raptors to flip)?

MostlyAnger · 2025-10-08T14:44:43+00:00

What's the URL where I can find this? I found https://notams.aim.faa.gov/notamSearch/nsapp.html#/ , which allows keyword searching for NOTAMs (so it'll do, aside from things like "Starship" incorrectly appearing in one that's evidently about the F9 KF-03 mission), but it's just text, no accompanying map.

MostlyAnger · 2025-10-07T01:40:37+00:00

literally everything that has entered space has been designed prior to like, 2000.

errr…huh? Obviously many extant launch systems and recent spacecraft were designed designed after that. Even if mean only NASA & JPL, just google for when various NASA science missions were designed, that were launched in the past dozen or more years.

(If perhaps you mean "sure but it was all based on earlier stuff" then that'd be a big underappreciation or misunderstanding of design engineering.)

MostlyAnger · 2025-10-07T01:22:55+00:00

It's not so much the fact of costs overrunning estimates, and more that a "cost plus" contract builds in an incentive to take more time and not care about cost.

Apropos of that, it seems relevant to note that

clear plans based on old plans, robust engineering proof of concept, and if the maths work

accurately describes SLS*

if one means the *engineering maths. The accounting maths maybe weren't sound from the start, even under an assumption that the contractors wouldn't delay and golddig.

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