iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chase Million @millionconcepts.com · 17h

As an executive branch agency, NASA and its civil servants will have to comply with this.

What it would do, though, is rob me of the opportunity to get really pissed off that Reviewer #2 didn't even read the damned thing and wrote a review based on what they inferred from skimming the abstract or whatever. I would lose a cherished hobby but regain ~10 days per year of productivity.

130

Chase Million @millionconcepts.com · 17h

I agree with this direction. Selections among highly rated proposals are down to "programmatic balance" and dice rolls anyway. And you can submit identical proposals twice and get wildly different rankings / feedback. Detailed reviewer feedback isn't actionable. Did my lottery ticket pay out or no?

210

Chase Million @millionconcepts.com · 20h

It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.

020

Reposted by Chase Million

Justin Walsh @jstpwalsh.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Shane Ross at Virginia Tech created a simulation of what 500k orbital data centers, as proposed by SpaceX, would look like from your home latitude sdross0.github.io/orbital-data...

sdross0.github.io

What would orbital data centers look like from your sky?

500,000 satellites from SpaceX's FCC filing, two published brightness models and the real stars, for any latitude, date and time. Computed in your browser.

39064

One concern, which many will already have clocked, is that if you write a proposal to an executive branch agency (e.g. NASA), then they will be forbidden from "acknowledging" standard terminology. How will that work? Will proposals containing forbidden technical words be rejected without review?

170

As an executive branch agency, NASA and its civil servants will have to comply with this.

4157

Reposted by Chase Million

If the critical decision points for your rocket flight involve "a lot of conversation" described as "dramatic" then your organizational and engineering culture is fucked up and you are going to get people killed.

041

The consensus opinion among people I talked to at LEAG was (quote) "stupid fucking idea." I initially thought maybe this was a JPL proposal. It seems to me now like it was Jared's personal brainstorm. Of course, if that's not the case, any clarity or communication at all from NASA would be cool.

000

What is the status of the "PROMISE" rover project? What is its concept of operations? What is its estimated total budget? What is its purpose?

031

Can you imagine? I certainly can! Fwiw, I've been told that the "cuts" were just a "re-phase" of funds, and that the teams will get their entire budgets eventually. Still sounds disruptive and stressful to me. What money is being redirected for "PROMISE," though? 🤷 It has to come from somewhere.

100

I have now heard that a NASA representative described the "cuts" as a "rephase" of funding and not "cuts." That the full budgets would eventually be delivered. I remain concerned. But the CLPS instrument teams aren't throwing (public) fits (yet), so I'll act as though cuts did not take place.

000

Reposted by Chase Million

Paul Voosen @voosen.me · 28/09/2026

He has to underline "safe" and "responsible" because it sure as shit looks like they rewrote the flight profile / safety rules on the fly. If your go-no-go checkpoint involves "a lot of conversation" and "drama," then you fucked up. Opposite of safe and responsible. Was there pressured from above?

181

Reposted by Chase Million

New Horizons is now *three days away* from shutting off its two heliophysics instruments, simply because NASA has not provided the $2M in funding it had promised to the mission last year or this year. There is no science basis for shutting these off. Our earlier coverage:

science.org

NASA’s New Horizons mission may shut down two instruments over lack of funding

Decision risks “incalculable loss” of data from the edge of the Sun’s influence, scientists say

16652400

Reposted by Chase Million

Union of Concerned Scientists @ucs.org · 28/09/2026

An unelected political appointee is disobeying the will of Congress & the rule of law by withholding funds for programs approved with bipartisan support. Blatantly unconstitutional. Flagrantly anti-science. The latest example of authoritarianism from the Trump admin.

npr.org

What to know about the $810 million in spending canceled by President Trump

President Trump announced plans to cancel $810 million in Congressionally approved spending, a move that some in his own party are calling illegal.

28463

Let's assume (quite generously) that each refueling launch has a 95% chance of mission success. The chance that 15 work back-to-back is <50%. You could launch another one to make up for a failure, but now 15 launches has become 20 and so on. We don't "fear" anything. We just did basic math.

130

Jared's record of winning arguments against straw men speaks for itself.

020

181

And what is the status of "PROMISE." The consensus opinion of "PROMISE" among people I talked to at LEAG was that it is --- and this is a direct quote --- "such a stupid fucking idea."

010

Derek Newsome @derek.space · 28/09/2026

After two weeks, does anybody have more information about this?

220

Reposted by Chase Million

It’s honestly not even that amazing of an achievement. It took Starship 14 flights to accomplish the bare minimum expected of a launch vehicle, and even then it’s not exactly been a smooth flight.

35611

041

"I'm sure it was pretty heated" re: "dialog behind the scenes." That should not happen.

150

Whatever the decision tree, would expect the go-no-go parameters to be clearly established and agreed to in advance. "We say excitement guaranteed. We don't lie." This should not be exciting, ffs. "Give me 30 seconds. I need a drink."

160

Christopher Michel @christophermichel.com · 26/09/2026

After first declaring that they would not attempt orbit, the commentator then recanted and referred to "a lot of conversation in the room behind me" and "a little extra drama as we go through this decision." To me, that's a weird statement. This is a decision that should involve zero drama.

251

Reposted by Chase Million

John Grotzinger helped lead Curiosity’s search for ancient habitability on Mars. He showed up for our Caltech portrait session on a homemade bicycle carrying a model rover wheel. Perfect. Portrait + story: explorers.com/john-grotzin...

0234

Chase Million @millionconcepts.com · 26/09/2026

Parenthetically, this means that we must speak (loudly, in public) from incomplete or wrong information. Which means that we'll probably be wrong a lot, in public. Scientists hate being publicly wrong! But we have no choice. We must work from unreliable information, until better is available.

030

Chase Million @millionconcepts.com · 26/09/2026

This is incredibly well written, informative, and important. Most civil servants (who remain) are working their asses off, trying to hold the institution together. But they are also often prevented from say true (even obvious) things in public. Those of us with the freedom to do so must speak.

131

Chase Million @millionconcepts.com · 26/09/2026

Except that Starlink is not lifetime profitable, and is only "cash flow" "profitable" by excluding capex. So it can't subsidize launch. If anything launch is subsidizing Starlink by carrying its bags. Whereas SpaceX made nearly-like-clockwork $0.5-1.5B annual equity raises. Ergo venture predation.

010

"Tech leaders" are lying. [Ignorance and stupidity are no longer valid excuses.] The most charitable read is that this is a marketing stunt for Google, which they expect to generate a bunch of mostly sympathetic press coverage in venues like (spitballing here) the New York Times.

020

Reposted by Chase Million

The Era of Cheap, Price-Per-Kilo Launch is Over, Launchers Say

VP of Firefly quoted here referring to "subsidized cost-per-kilo model" for launch wrt SpaceX. Is everyone coming around to the fact (or finally willing to state publicly) that Falcon 9 was never as cheap as claimed, and that SpaceX has been doing venture backed predatory pricing for a decade?

satellitetoday.com

PARIS — Space launch competitors think it’s time for a new model of pricing in the launch market. Against the backdrop of SpaceX winding down the Falcon 9

1229

Reposted by Chase Million

In the last... ~week or two... much commentary (including from NASA leadership) about why we are fetishizing the Lunar south pole has started shifting from in situ resources to "training ground for Mars." The argument has not been clearly articulated; on its face, it is barely more credible.

111

I'd probably argue that---if that were the goal---trying to set up a Moon base near and in some underground voids would be a far more useful training ground. Rather than chasing ice (that might not exist) for reasons (that nobody understands).

010

I can't think of anything about living on Mars that can be derisked uniquely by the Lunar south pole (as opposed to any other random location on the Moon).

110

111

We might not know for sure until key former SpaceX employees no longer fear their NDAs or complicity. Or until the truth and reconciliation commission is allowed to sift through the ashes.

120

That tracks. I've found over years that it's a minority opinion even among serious SpaceX skeptics and critics. But I also think it's correct. Nobody has presented convincing counter-evidence.

230

Falcon 9 is a very reliable rocket. It would have been possible to build a nice business around flying a very reliable rocket for a competitive (but profitable) price. But "a nice business" was never (and is not) the goal from the "monopolies are good akshully" crowd. Monopoly was always the goal.

1100

I might need this on a shirt to wear at space industry events.

030

* SpaceX is winding down Falcon 9, which is a batshit thing to do if it's profitable, even if Starship ever works. * Nobody else has been able to reproduce any of the claimed cost savings associated with first stage reuse, despite many trying. * NASA's $/kg launch cost has risen in the Falcon era.

1111

The mountain of indirect evidence we have that Falcon 9 in fact costs more than claimed includes: * Musk wrote a memo stating that the company would fail if Starship didn't work. * Several industry leaders have now accused SpaceX of subsidizing their own launch (including Tory Bruno). [cont]

170

We don't know how much Falcon 9 costs SpaceX to launch. The only source for Falcon 9 costs are SpaceX marketing materials or attempts to reverse engineer the cost through a mount of assumptions (and often with a dash of motivated reasoning).

150

The Era of Cheap, Price-Per-Kilo Launch is Over, Launchers Say

satellitetoday.com

PARIS — Space launch competitors think it’s time for a new model of pricing in the launch market. Against the backdrop of SpaceX winding down the Falcon 9

1229