flown-the-coop said:

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Wasn't Isaacmans nomination being withdrawn part of the supposed rift between Elon and Trump?

Just saw the Truth about being renominated. Makes me wonder if Isaacman had a conflict of interest he had to resolve that came up during the nomination process. It's been roughly 6 months so seems plausible.

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This is from grok and aligns with what I heard a few weeks ago:

Quote:

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Sergio Gor was the key Trump administration official who pushed to block Jared Isaacman's NASA nomination in May 2025. As director of the Office of Presidential Personnel, Gor had previously clashed with Elon Musk during Musk's brief role in the administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). When Musk departed abruptly on May 30, 2025, amid escalating tensions with Trump, Gor reportedly lobbied White House officials to scrutinize Isaacman's vetting files, resurfacing concerns about his past donations to Democrats (which were public knowledge since the December 2024 nomination). This led to Trump withdrawing the nomination the next day, just before the Senate confirmation vote.

Isaacman himself alluded to internal "axes to grind" tied to Musk in a June 2025 interview, without naming Gor directly. Reports described it as behind-the-scenes maneuvering by a top aide who had grown to dislike Musk, aligning with Gor's position and history.

Gor has since moved to a new role as special assistant to the president for legislative affairs, announced in September 2025. His departure from personnel oversight removed the primary internal roadblock, paving the way for Trump to renominate Isaacman on November 4, 2025, after months of reconciliation efforts between Isaacman, Musk, and the White House.

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Never underestimate the ability for grown men to behave like junior girls.

Space exploration is so difficult it drives huge innovations and the value to humanity by pushing the envelope is immeasurable.

My only gripe is we should be exploring the ocean depths, every square inch. There are some really cool undersea drones and such being deployed to map new areas.

Then just because it would be cool we need to bore through the earths crust. Isn't their a hole already started in Russia?

Explore though. Explore.

I expect the most shocking thing from the space industry in 2026 to be the rate of change in Starship development. Once they iron out a few processes in V3 construction it's going to go fast.

SPACEX: This morning at the 3rd Annual Space Economy Summit at UCF Orlando, SpaceX VP of Launch, Kiko Dontchev (@TurkeyBeaver), stated Flight 12 of the first V3 Starship could launch as soon as January and that V3 Super Heavy Booster 18 will rollout to Pad 2 for tests in the… pic.twitter.com/adb3hYHKcK

— S.E. Robinson, Jr. (@SERobinsonJr) November 5, 2025

NASA eventually should build a Starfleet Academy to train and prepare the commercial industry to operate safely and successfully in this future space economy, and consolidate and upgrade mission control into a single "NORAD of peaceful space"

With all the discussion about the NASA dir nom I figured I'd share a great Op-Ed from Spuds Vogel on the current state of the culture within NASA that's in line with the way many on this thread view NASA and some of its shortcomings.

https://spacenews.com/nasas-moment-is-now-breaking-decades-of-strategic-whiplash/

Here's a snippet:

Quote:

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Embracing risk and accountability. The words "risk" and "cancel" shouldn't make NASA leaders anxious those words should be central to the agency's vocabulary.

The agency's most transformative discoveries have emerged when mission success, not bureaucratic survival, determined resource allocation. Apollo, Hubble, Mars rovers all of those mission-focused successes captured the imagination of average Americans and inspired the country. NASA's world-leading science missions from planetary exploration to astrophysics to Earth science thrive under the same principles that should guide human exploration: objective-based planning, transparent prioritization and the courage to make hard choices.

Breakthrough technologies require calculated risks, but they also demand the courage to terminate programs when technology bets don't pay off or requirements change. This isn't failure; it's responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources and good management.

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Big launch happening soon for ULA and Viasat, after their previous enormo-huge satellite mostly failed after launch:

Jock 07 said:

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With all the discussion about the NASA dir nom I figured I'd share a great Op-Ed from Spuds Vogel on the current state of the culture within NASA that's in line with the way many on this thread view NASA and some of its shortcomings.

https://spacenews.com/nasas-moment-is-now-breaking-decades-of-strategic-whiplash/

Here's a snippet:

Quote:

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Embracing risk and accountability. The words "risk" and "cancel" shouldn't make NASA leaders anxious those words should be central to the agency's vocabulary.

The agency's most transformative discoveries have emerged when mission success, not bureaucratic survival, determined resource allocation. Apollo, Hubble, Mars rovers all of those mission-focused successes captured the imagination of average Americans and inspired the country. NASA's world-leading science missions from planetary exploration to astrophysics to Earth science thrive under the same principles that should guide human exploration: objective-based planning, transparent prioritization and the courage to make hard choices.

Breakthrough technologies require calculated risks, but they also demand the courage to terminate programs when technology bets don't pay off or requirements change. This isn't failure; it's responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources and good management.

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Things that will never happen for $1,000 Alex.

This really isn't a NASA specific issue. Many government programs can start off effective when they have a specific, calculable goal. Unfortunately, they all devolve over time into bureaucracy, inefficiency and with the only real discernible goal being to continue to exist. If we are being honest, it needs to be gutted and restarted from the ground up.

normaleagle05 said:

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I expect the most shocking thing from the space industry in 2026 to be the rate of change in Starship development. Once they iron out a few processes in V3 construction it's going to go fast.

SPACEX: This morning at the 3rd Annual Space Economy Summit at UCF Orlando, SpaceX VP of Launch, Kiko Dontchev (@TurkeyBeaver), stated Flight 12 of the first V3 Starship could launch as soon as January and that V3 Super Heavy Booster 18 will rollout to Pad 2 for tests in the… pic.twitter.com/adb3hYHKcK

— S.E. Robinson, Jr. (@SERobinsonJr) November 5, 2025

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Is V3 the one to get to Mars?

MaxPower said:

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Jock 07 said:

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With all the discussion about the NASA dir nom I figured I'd share a great Op-Ed from Spuds Vogel on the current state of the culture within NASA that's in line with the way many on this thread view NASA and some of its shortcomings.

https://spacenews.com/nasas-moment-is-now-breaking-decades-of-strategic-whiplash/

Here's a snippet:

Quote:

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Embracing risk and accountability. The words "risk" and "cancel" shouldn't make NASA leaders anxious those words should be central to the agency's vocabulary.

The agency's most transformative discoveries have emerged when mission success, not bureaucratic survival, determined resource allocation. Apollo, Hubble, Mars rovers all of those mission-focused successes captured the imagination of average Americans and inspired the country. NASA's world-leading science missions from planetary exploration to astrophysics to Earth science thrive under the same principles that should guide human exploration: objective-based planning, transparent prioritization and the courage to make hard choices.

Breakthrough technologies require calculated risks, but they also demand the courage to terminate programs when technology bets don't pay off or requirements change. This isn't failure; it's responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources and good management.

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Things that will never happen for $1,000 Alex.

This really isn't a NASA specific issue. Many government programs can start off effective when they have a specific, calculable goal. Unfortunately, they all devolve over time into bureaucracy, inefficiency and with the only real discernible goal being to continue to exist. If we are being honest, it needs to be gutted and restarted from the ground up.

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Seems to me that NASA has become too risk averse to be much good on the front end of designing, testing, and developing manned spacecraft. They would be a lot better on the back end at managing and directing programs after the spacecraft themselves are proven and reliable.

Congressional grift is what keeps overpriced and outdated programs like Artemis going. Too much contract money spread across too many congressional districts. Basically, keeping shuttle era jobs alive. The sooner Artemis is scrapped, the better. I would wager that starship (Spacex) or the Chinese will get to the moon first.

I expect some V3 ships to go to Mars. I'd wager heavy payload landings, and a lot of them, don't happen until V4.

One thing I took away from the flight 11 broadcast was the tile production rate. 3.5 weeks ago they said they're currently producing 10 ships/month worth of heat shield tiles. Nevermind the several months before then that they had been working on V3 tiles after ceasing production on V2 tiles. What would be the reason to stockpile tiles you couldn't use?

If that rate holds flat (not something SpaceX is known for), they'll have had the opportunity to produce ~170 ships worth of V3 tiles before the close of the 2026 Mars transfer window.

What is the limiting factor then? My guess is Raptor 3 production. Yesterday we saw photos of #54 leaving the McGregor site, which means they're well into the 60s-70s or even higher at McGregor. That well exceeds any content creators' estimates I've seen for Raptor 3 production. The week of flight 11 grok thought it couldn't be higher than 45.

Edit to correct above: current rate is 1/7 that rate. Facility design rate is 10/month. That's still easily 25 ships in 2026. Plus some margin depending when they started making V3 tiles.

TexAgBolter said:

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Congressional grift is what keeps overpriced and outdated programs like Artemis going. Too much contract money spread across too many congressional districts. Basically, keeping shuttle era jobs alive. The sooner Artemis is scrapped, the better. I would wager that starship (Spacex) or the Chinese will get to the moon first.

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Yes but see above. This isn't going away and happens with every government programs. I don't know how you do it but executive branch needs more power. Let congress say how much money you get and that's it. No specific programs, no funding to certain locations, etc.

Why would they make that many tiles when they aren't rapidly reusable yet? I know they've been stressing them, but I don't think they're rapidly reusable yet are they?

Ag87H2O said:

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MaxPower said:

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Jock 07 said:

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With all the discussion about the NASA dir nom I figured I'd share a great Op-Ed from Spuds Vogel on the current state of the culture within NASA that's in line with the way many on this thread view NASA and some of its shortcomings.

https://spacenews.com/nasas-moment-is-now-breaking-decades-of-strategic-whiplash/

Here's a snippet:

Quote:

---

Embracing risk and accountability. The words "risk" and "cancel" shouldn't make NASA leaders anxious those words should be central to the agency's vocabulary.

The agency's most transformative discoveries have emerged when mission success, not bureaucratic survival, determined resource allocation. Apollo, Hubble, Mars rovers all of those mission-focused successes captured the imagination of average Americans and inspired the country. NASA's world-leading science missions from planetary exploration to astrophysics to Earth science thrive under the same principles that should guide human exploration: objective-based planning, transparent prioritization and the courage to make hard choices.

Breakthrough technologies require calculated risks, but they also demand the courage to terminate programs when technology bets don't pay off or requirements change. This isn't failure; it's responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources and good management.

---

---

Things that will never happen for $1,000 Alex.

This really isn't a NASA specific issue. Many government programs can start off effective when they have a specific, calculable goal. Unfortunately, they all devolve over time into bureaucracy, inefficiency and with the only real discernible goal being to continue to exist. If we are being honest, it needs to be gutted and restarted from the ground up.

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Seems to me that NASA has become too risk averse to be much good on the front end of designing, testing, and developing manned spacecraft. They would be a lot better on the back end at managing and directing programs after the spacecraft themselves are proven and reliable.

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Venture Star was a high risk high reward project on the absolute bleeding edge of material science. NASA cancelled it early when the composite tanks proved impossible to construct. These are the types of technological leaps NASA should be pursuing. If 9:10 projects fail, it would be a roaring success.

TexAgs91 said:

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Why would they make that many tiles when they aren't rapidly reusable yet? I know they've been stressing them, but I don't think they're rapidly reusable yet are they?

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See edit above. 1/7 that rate currently. Capable of that rate. Still 25 plus ships worth of tiles in 2026. That's still a lot of potential ships in 2026. If they don't have V2-esque problems, it would seem to be plenty to start seeing orbital refueling attempts, HLS demonstration flights, and possibly still have a 1-2 ship shot at Mars in the window.

Wild guesses:
2 expended in V2 type flight profiles.
2 caught and disassembled for inspection.
2 HLS demos, no tiles.
2 depots, no tiles.
3 Starlink dispensers.
2 ????? ships.
10 tankers.

There's 8 Raptors headed to testing in this post/comments. Nearly half a booster worth in the past week.

raptor 3.. pic.twitter.com/UHUqblGTri

— Michael (@michaelsrockets) November 6, 2025

FAA restricts commercial rocket launches indefinitely due to air traffic risks from government shutdown https://t.co/Hd0PZtCNz4

— SPACE.com (@SPACEdotcom) November 7, 2025

Man how badly do you suck as a pilot if you run into a rocket ship?

Rapier108 said:

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FAA restricts commercial rocket launches indefinitely due to air traffic risks from government shutdown https://t.co/Hd0PZtCNz4

— SPACE.com (@SPACEdotcom) November 7, 2025

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Can we send democrat Senators to jail for affecting interstate commerce?

Plane passenger catches a Falcon 9 launch on camera... and it's what you expect it to be.pic.twitter.com/QA3hx8tv2P

— Defiant L’s (@DefiantLs) November 8, 2025

New Glenn-2 launch window opens at 1:45 CST

Rain now!

Skies are clearing. L-18min!

EDA thinking it is a scrub now.

Kunkle for Congress TX-34 said:

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EDA thinking it is a scrub now.

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Somebody said the window closed at 3:13pm so it should be a scrub.

It's a scrub due to clouds and next launch is TBD based on weather

Officially a scrub for today

Elon Musk being Elon Musk 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/xgCYPE4dGo

— Yatharth (@yatharthmaan) November 9, 2025

Next New Glenn NG-2 launch attempt is Wednesday, November 12, due to forecasted weather and sea state conditions, from 2:50 PM 4:17 PM EST.

New Glenn scrubbed today because of the solar activity.

They need a 93 million mile safe zone?

Those colored electrons must be hard to fly through.

just saw a video that possibility of a cat 4 solar storm today/tonight. supposed to be aurora visible in the north as far south as DFW.

AgBQ-00 said:

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just saw a video that possibility of a cat 4 solar storm today/tonight. supposed to be aurora visible in the north as far south as DFW.

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Oh man, was checking on this last night, but saw it was only down around Colorado, and maybe Alabama.

Will have to check again!

It was faintly visible last night. Should be better tonight. Much more visible in phone cameras than naked eye. Edit: in dfw