The launch site thing was a hard blocker, in the sense that even if every other issue was resolved, it would make Russian contributions meaningless or impossible.

The main reason China declined Russian participation, is orbital mechanics.

Came to post this, you beat me to it...it is also my favorite, for the same reason.

Have to add my favorite:

It is equally as plausible that it’s a s goat with a jet pack as it is an alien or supernatural being. In fact a goat with a jet pack is infinitely more plausible than the other two

You would think that would be obvious but the folks here are intoxicated on their tribalism. Nothing rational ever comes of it.

It is a public company and the “public” nature of the deal is a given. From what I understand penalties exist for either side walking away from the deal. If user numbers are fudged, that is fraud. Other shareholders will sue the hell out of the company. If any level of fraud is exposed he will walk away richer. Stock…

Another Elon Musk hit piece? Wow, Gizmodo has only published 3 others of those today. Good thing we got this one too.

Narcissistic VCs are what moves us forward. Moving from research to commercialization is part where most great ideas fail.

The thing hydrolox is really good at is efficiency (technical term: specific impulse). For any given weight of chemicals, hydrogen+oxygen gives you more energy than basically anything else. I think hydrogen+fluorine beats it by a bit but NOBODY is going to touch multiple tons of liquid fluorine. If you want better…

Anyone using deep cryogenic propellants like hydrolox for a nuclear missile is pants-shittingly stupid.

Ha, I love the “Avoid Earth” step for the orbiter.

> to prep their denying SpaceX the original contract

They didn’t go with a modified Dragon because SpaceX wants to deliver 100-150 tons to the surface in one shot. And they plan on using different engines, probably similar to their SuperDraco engines develop for Dragon, to touch down. These will located high, so won’t create an exhaust crater on the Moon, similar to how…

Yep, in fact it flew through the orbital level of the ISS.

I’m sad now, because I’ll never make a comment this good.  Have a star.

The Man in The DeLorean in The Mandalorian.

I am very proud of my people. Living in US, feel helpless to some extent, but seeing so many great projects go up in all sectors to help is empowering.. and frankly seeing this story, comments from you on my daily read here is amazing. Really feels like the world is behind us. In the past, if felt a bit for show…

What this article fails to point out is that Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus resupply spacecraft is also capable of performing orbit corrections to the ISS, and that the there is currently one docked at the ISS with for the purpose of testing this capability. Northrop Grumman is a US company.