The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently gave SpaceX permission to build Starlink — Elon Musk’s version of satellite-based broadband Internet. The FCC specifically approved launching the first 4,425 of what will eventually total 11,925 satellites in orbit. To keep this license SpaceX has to launch at least 2,213 satellites within six years. The implications of this project are mind-boggling with the most important probably being that it will likely result in SpaceX crushing its space launch competitors, companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin’s United Launch Alliance (ULA) partnership as well as Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
Starlink is a hugely ambitious project. It isn’t the first […]
Just in case you are an astronaut and need something to worry about, according to NASA there are 18,000 pieces of space junk the size of a basketball or larger right now orbiting the earth. That’s 18,000 chances to slam into the International Space Station (ISS), bump into a U.S. Space Shuttle, or plow into any of a number of satellites in low Earth orbit. Twice the ISS has had to be moved to avoid potential collisions and one other time when it couldn’t be moved the crew huddled in their Soyuz taxicab for danger to pass, with one such near-miss taking place just last week, which is what inspired this column.
I have a mouse in my RV. Or as many correspondents have told me I have MICE in my RV, because the concept of a solitary mouse is beyond their considerable experience. This month my wife, three young sons and I (and of course the mice) are in California, mainly touring in our 1996 Winnebago. We tour, we fix, then tour some more. The old Winnie was never built for 107-degree desert temperatures and neither was I. So since we’re broken-down waiting (again) for the fixit man to come, I think this might be a good time to update my readers on a few old projects.