Artemis is in an interesting place right now. It’s a bit of a mess. But it has a lot of cool and interesting parts.

Artemis 2 might launch in 2026 with 4 astronauts for a loop around the moon. Artemis 3 might launch this decade for a lunar landing with 2 astronauts aboard a SpaceX Starship lander. A lot needs to happen for that to work, like massive progress on the Starship program and Axiom space suits, and continued progress on Lockheed’s Orion capsule.

Artemis 2 and 3 aren’t givens anymore in the DOGE era, but they might still happen. A4+ rely on a new SLS stage from Boeing (EUS) and a new launch tower from Bechtel that are both running way over cost. Also in the mix is Lunar Gateway, a space station around the moon that isn’t really needed to get to the surface, but includes some different parts from international partners. So, who knows. We’ll see what happens.

SpaceX’s Starship contracts with NASA are fixed price and milestone based. So, if they blow it up, that cost is on them. Just like Boeing has had to shell out a lot of money from continuing to fail on Starliner.

and achieved a navigation fix

I set low expectations when I saw the headline, but that means they saw at least 4 GNSS sats at once, which is pretty big step forward.

Agreed, I’ve had some success using it essentially as a replacement for how I used to use Stackexchange, which is to remind me of a syntax or make a little function when I have to do some scripting once every few months, but I don’t trust it for anything more than the basics.

I brought up Northrop because I’m guessing they bid a Cygnus derived deorbit vehicle.

How is this a handout? They bid for a contract and won it vs competitors.

I’m hoping we get a source selection statement soon where they spell out why companies like Northrop and Blue didn’t win.

Eh. Mine freaks out and fails half the time I try to go full screen. And the frame rate seems like it gets awful randomly.

I’m moving and starting over with a lot of my computer / AV setup. I had Plex awhile ago but haven’t run a media server in at least a few years. Should I go with Jellyfin or Emby? Or something else? I guess the main limitation is streaming to a smart TV.

They were already trying to ruin it with Tidal exclusive albums

I switched to AntennaPod for podcasts because of this. It’s also just a better experience - it auto downloads new episodes and deletes them after playing.

I don’t think this is true anymore. The cost of a rideshare with SpaceX is super accessible. Companies can launch for <$1 million. This has been huge for a lot of companies trying to launch a proof of concept or one-off, and even for some operational constellations.

AstroForge thinks they can close the business case for asteroid mining. Their concept is to launch mining satellites to near-Earth M-type asteroids to mine platinum group metals. These would go on 2 year missions to bring back $100 million+ in metal at a time. With launch and satellite costs dropping, it might just work. Their forge demo sat has been struggling but moving forward. Their asteroid flyby demo sat should launch later this year.

Redwire 3d printed a meniscus in space last year. That’ll take awhile to get worthwhile scale and cost, but it’s another interesting avenue.

Varda hit regulatory trouble, but their orbital drug manufacturing demo did its job.

You can still get free Amazon shipping without Prime, and they generally beat the week or so that they say they’ll do for me.

I haven’t had Prime for years but still shop on Amazon a bit. You get free shipping on orders over… $25 or $35? So group a few non urgent things and you’re good to go. I pay for quicker shipping maybe once or twice a year, and pay for shipping in other sites maybe a half dozen times a year.

Does your TV have a USB port? You might literally be able to just download files to an external drive and go plug that into your TV.

Yup, low earth orbit (LEO) still has some thin atmosphere that slows things down a tiny bit and makes them deorbit over time. That’s why, for example, the ISS has to reboost to stay up and can chuck garbage bags overboard and not really worry about them. The deorbit time depends on a lot of factors including the mass and surface area. Starlink sats are supposed to passively deorbit in about 5 years.