JUST IN: Nvidia purchases nearly $21 billion stake in SpaceX

— Kalshi (@Kalshi) August 14, 2026

A bit odd.

nortex97 said:

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JUST IN: Nvidia purchases nearly $21 billion stake in SpaceX

— Kalshi (@Kalshi) August 14, 2026

A bit odd.

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This is how Nvidia helps finance sales of their AI servers. And it helps disincentivize SpX from cutting them completely from their supply chain down the road.

AgBQ-00 said:

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in the first one is that 2 galaxies? Or is it a galaxy and much closer bright star?

Awesome pictures!!!

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It's two galaxies that are colliding.

that is what I was wondering! that is awesome!

THIS Is What a Solar Eclipse Looks Like From Space 🌑 pic.twitter.com/n5vGx0mRpL

— Physics-astronomy (@Physicsastronmy) August 13, 2026

AgBQ-00 said:

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in the first one is that 2 galaxies? Or is it a galaxy and much closer bright star?

Awesome pictures!!!

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Yes. That's a trillion galaxies in that pic.

I read Jim Cantrell (@jamesncantrell), Co-founder & CEO of Phantom Space, something he had said before: that executives at very big corporations once wanted him to help destroy @elonmusk.

"They signed a contract willing to pay me a lot of money."

"Their question was, 'Why is he… pic.twitter.com/HtSspP1ld3

— Chris Powers (@fortworthchris) August 14, 2026

Ducks4brkfast said:

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AgBQ-00 said:

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in the first one is that 2 galaxies? Or is it a galaxy and much closer bright star?

Awesome pictures!!!

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Yes. That's a trillion galaxies in that pic.

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I'm pretty sure there is a third galaxy in the M 101 shot. It's at about 12:30 half way to the top. There is a blurry spot that's faint but it's there.

Ducks4brkfast said:

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AgBQ-00 said:

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in the first one is that 2 galaxies? Or is it a galaxy and much closer bright star?

Awesome pictures!!!

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Yes. That's a trillion galaxies in that pic.

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But how many are larger than a single pixel?

techno-ag said:

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THIS Is What a Solar Eclipse Looks Like From Space 🌑 pic.twitter.com/n5vGx0mRpL

— Physics-astronomy (@Physicsastronmy) August 13, 2026

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That's more AI slop.

The earth's atmosphere isn't that thick and the eclipse shadow wouldn't be tracking the ISS like that



From 2024

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/08/ukraine-strikes-major-russian-rocket-factory-with-cruise-missiles/

This could result in a slowdown in production of Soyuz rockets. No real impact to ISS ops in the short to midterm.

Met one of the astronauts from the Artemis mission yesterday at the Elissa homecoming.

You got all that from Hearne? Those are great.

Im out off OSR past Edge. Little dirt road and an old cemetary. Last thing you want taking a 30 minute picture is to have someone drive up with lights and blow you out.

Mathguy64 said:

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Im out off OSR past Edge. Little dirt road and an old cemetary. Last thing you want taking a 30 minute picture is to have someone drive up with lights and blow you out.

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I assume you have some sort of worm drive for your tripod/mount for an exposure that long?

torrid said:

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Mathguy64 said:

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Im out off OSR past Edge. Little dirt road and an old cemetary. Last thing you want taking a 30 minute picture is to have someone drive up with lights and blow you out.

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I assume you have some sort of worm drive for your tripod/mount for an exposure that long?

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It's on an Alt-Az base and corrects as it goes. It takes 10 second exposures and stacks them on top of each other. So a 30 minute exposure is really 180 stacked pics. Anything that doesn't line up or has streaks automatically gets discarded and it generally takes an hour to get a 30 minute stack.

The Western launch crisis is already bad, so what happens if SpaceX does indeed take the Falcon 9 off the commercial market in two years?https://t.co/ilohCOx5dg

— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) August 17, 2026

PJYoung said:

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The Western launch crisis is already bad, so what happens if SpaceX does indeed take the Falcon 9 off the commercial market in two years?https://t.co/ilohCOx5dg

— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) August 17, 2026

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Seems to me that Elon will be able to name his price and keep flying Falcons as needed until Super Heavy is ready to pick up the baton. The market will respond.

PJYoung said:

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The Western launch crisis is already bad, so what happens if SpaceX does indeed take the Falcon 9 off the commercial market in two years?https://t.co/ilohCOx5dg

— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) August 17, 2026

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Wasn't there somebody claiming that the rumor of the end of the Falcon launches was a prank, not real from SpaceX? And even if it is real, isn't the plan for Starship to pick up the load from Falcon? Presumably if Starship isn't ready, they will delay the end of Falcon.

Yeah...
I recall some internet **** saying he put that out there to troll the main stream media but it took far more legs than he intended. I can see SpaceX ignoring it, but at the same time if you've got someone like Berger writing about it it seems they should address it.

Either Starship with it's far larger lifting capacity can efficiently support all/most of the Falcon 9 market or Falcon 9 will remain flying if it's profitable. Unless SpaceX truly needs all of the resources/personnel that even a reduced cadence F9 program would utilize.

One thing I don't see happening.... Dept of War and other national defense hardware is probably NOT going to be allowed to rideshare and no way in heck will they ride on foreign (maybe ESA, but even then doubtful) so.... Atlas is fully booked up/committed. New Glenn could help out at some point, but they don't have polar capability unless they have the deltaV for a pretty big dog leg maneuver over the Atlantic.

Who else? Could fill the void?

Apparently the news of falcon launches winding down seems to be true as SpaceX will be focusing on themselves.

Quote:

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The company that is almost exclusively responsible for the dramatic increase in launch availability in the 2020s has signaled that it intends to wind down Falcon 9 operations as quickly as possible in favor of the larger Starship rocket. Some might see that as a good thing due to Starship's enormous payload capacity. But there are growing concerns that SpaceX will largely focus on its own payloadsStarlink v3 satellites and orbital data centersbecause of their potential to drive far greater profits. The Starship rocket's PEZ satellite dispenser, optimized for Starlink, is an indication of the company's priorities.

In financial documents, it's clear that SpaceX views commercial launch as a rounding error compared to revenues from its own satellites in space.

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And as I pointed oit earlier, falcon launch cadence is off in 2026 compared to last years peak.

PJYoung said:

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Apparently the news of falcon launches winding down seems to be true as SpaceX will be focusing on themselves.

Quote:

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The company that is almost exclusively responsible for the dramatic increase in launch availability in the 2020s has signaled that it intends to wind down Falcon 9 operations as quickly as possible in favor of the larger Starship rocket. Some might see that as a good thing due to Starship's enormous payload capacity. But there are growing concerns that SpaceX will largely focus on its own payloadsStarlink v3 satellites and orbital data centersbecause of their potential to drive far greater profits. The Starship rocket's PEZ satellite dispenser, optimized for Starlink, is an indication of the company's priorities.

In financial documents, it's clear that SpaceX views commercial launch as a rounding error compared to revenues from its own satellites in space.

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They ought to license construction and operation of Falcon 9 to somebody like Firefly if they don't intend to continue providing large scale commercial launch capabilities.

Ah here is more specific info from Berger:

Quote:

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SpaceX has already moved beyond "peak" Falcon 9 operations. The company flew the rocket 165 times last year, and it will probably fly about 20 fewer missions this year. SpaceX is already making ground system changes to reflect these reductions.

The company's president, Gwynne Shotwell, has previously said the operational lifetime of the Falcon 9 may end in 2030 or 2032. However, more recently, commercial satellite customers have been running into difficulties when trying to purchase a launch after 2028. One source said SpaceX has told the US government that it intends to end commercial launches after 2028 but will continue flying the Falcon 9 rocket for a limited number of federally contracted missions after that.

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I feel like everybody got trolled by that guy yelling FAKE NEWS.

PJYoung said:

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And as I pointed oit earlier, falcon launch cadence is off in 2026 compared to last years peak.

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Most of that is due to taking one of the drone ships out of service to prepare for transport of starships and boosters to the Cape and changes to their usage of LC-39A for Starship launches in the future.

Looks like they made it to Xmas island.

Holy $#*! Well my friends, I've managed to get in touch with brilliant international wildlife photographer Chris Bray on Christmas Island and he just grabbed some shots of Ship 40 for us! Take a look at this!🤯

Lot's more to come so follow him from the link. 👇 pic.twitter.com/zNJP68E1dy

— Marcus House (@MarcusHouse) August 18, 2026

And the next question arises; now what?

Their towing it by the raptor lmfao https://t.co/IxQrfYAaSa pic.twitter.com/Boh1mF7BQD

— MissionControl (@Miss1onControl) August 18, 2026

Some more photos from SpaceX.

After approx. 24 days at sea, the SpaceX Recovery team successfully guided Starship to a location just off the coast of Christmas Island. A team of SpaceX engineers is on their way to conduct additional analysis on the vehicle in calmer waters before attempting to return it to… pic.twitter.com/h6YYWb0LT5

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 18, 2026

I have no idea how they'll load that thing for transport, but I'm here for it. SpaceX engineers are a special breed.

OKCAg2002 said:

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I have no idea how they'll load that thing for transport, but I'm here for it. SpaceX engineers are a special breed.

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I have to think they are going to hold it at Christmas Island until they can get some sort of heavy lift ship out there to load it onto a barge or something. I can't imagine they are thinking of towing it across the entire equatorial Pacific at 3 knots through potentially typhoon generated seas. Looks to be about a 15,000 mile trip back to Starbase via the Panama Canal. That would take 7 months at 3 knots.

OKCAg2002 said:

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I have no idea how they'll load that thing for transport, but I'm here for it. SpaceX engineers are a special breed.

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I imagine they would get a semi-submersible ship out there and just float it on, secure it and bring it to port in Texas... Hopefully the channel/port in Brownsville is deep enough to float it off again, otherwise they could do it offshore and tow it in. Then the issue is getting a crawler or something from Brownsville to Starbase.

Or they could start to dismantle elsewhere and start investigating in a more piecemeal manner and only bring a portion of the parts back for much less cost.

Ratchet straps and jb weld should do it.