Everyone has a duck in the front yard in my neighborhood and they all get dressed up differently. I just caught this one while walking the dog. 😍

>Be Elon >Get bullied so badly as a kid that you end up in the hospital >Escape into books >Read more than 8hrs a day >Teach yourself programming >Sell a video game at 12 >Leave South Africa >Sleep on couches >Work odd jobs >Get into America >Build a startup >Get fired from your own company >Start over >Build another company >Merge it into PayPal >Get removed as CEO >Your company gets acquired >Walk away with nearly $180 million >Instead of retiring at 31, put almost all of it into three impossible ideas: Electric cars, Solar energy, Rockets >People tell you you're insane >Start a rocket company with no aerospace degree >Learn rocket science from textbooks >First rocket fails >Second rocket fails >Third rocket fails >Divorce >Public humiliation >Cash running out >One launch away from bankruptcy >Launch anyway >The fourth rocket reaches orbit >NASA signs a contract >Survive >Tesla is weeks from collapse >Save it at the last minute >Get mocked for wanting reusable rockets. >Land one. >Then another. >Then dozens. >Turn science fiction into engineering >Get mocked for betting on EVs >Turn electric cars into status symbols >Force the entire auto industry to follow >Build the most valuable car company in history >Launch astronauts into orbit >Create a global satellite internet network. >Buy Twitter >Fire most of the staff >Rename it X >Walk into politics >Risk your reputation >Risk your companies >Risk your fortune >Become one of the most polarising people on Earth. >Get attacked by the media, politicians, competitors, and activists >Keep building anyway >Become a TRILLIONAIRE

Can’t win either way I guess. - put a female on the crew and people complain it’s not merit based. - don’t put a female on the crew and people complain it’s a boys club Everyone just relax

Elon Musk personally arranged a phone call with a 15 year old girl who was dying of cancer. When the call connected she was too exhausted to speak. Her name was Olivia Perrotto. Everyone called her Liv. She had been fighting cancer for five years. She loved space more than anything. She designed a stuffed animal called Asteroid, a Shiba Inu in a spacesuit, and it was selected as the official zero gravity indicator for the Polaris Dawn mission. The most historic crewed spaceflight since Apollo. Her plush toy went to space. It floated in zero gravity 1,400 kilometers above Earth during the first commercial spacewalk in history. A stuffed animal designed by a teenager who might not live to see it land. Before the mission she wrote eight questions on a piece of paper for Elon. Things like have you been to Japan. What's your favorite anime. Do you like dogs. And the last one. Will you make Asteroid the official SpaceX mascot. Elon tried to call her to answer the questions personally. But by the time the call was arranged she was too weak to talk. He sent flowers and a handwritten note instead. The questions stayed on her nightstand. She passed away in January 2026 at fifteen years old. Three months later Elon answered all eight questions publicly. He said yes to making Asteroid the official SpaceX mascot. It took him two days to respond because the decision had to be approved internally by SpaceX leadership. The plush now sits in a permanent museum display at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center with a plaque that reads In Memory of Olivia Liv Perrotto. Most people see Elon as the rocket guy or the richest man alive. But he sent flowers to a dying girl he never met because she loved his rockets. That's the part the headlines miss.

Root cause analysis will show what went wrong. Fixes will ensure this won’t happen again. Just part of it. That’s why testing is so important.

It’s always cool to hear mission audio. Cooler when they talk about weird shit. 👽🛸 LISTEN: Pentagon Releases Audio Of Gemini 7 Mission Astronauts Encounter... youtu.be/yy8C5kwXu_s?si=f9hC…

I’m noticing the “NASA fans” that are doubting Jared’s Moon Base plans have no idea about the existence of JAXA’s/Toyota’s Lunar Cruiser. Lunar Cruiser is so absurdly large that it’s a mobile base in itself, this beast will do so much for humanity. It will also be deployed before any base modules by Starship as it’s been in very good development for many years now

Gene Kranz’s doppelgänger is on my front porch. I made sure to tell him.

Scott Hubbard, described his reaction as conflicting after the test: “I had two very distinct emotions. On one hand I wanted to say YES! because engineering had demonstrated without a doubt that the foam was the cause. The foam did it. The foam blew a hole in the wing. And at the same time I felt this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that we had just observed what had in fact killed a crew of 7.” —————————- On the Columbia tragedy, physicist G. Scott Hubbard was the key NASA voice on the independent CAIB (Columbia accident investigation board). He led proving that a briefcase-sized chunk of external tank foam hit the left wing’s RCC leading edge during launch. The team built a massive nitrogen cannon. They fired real BX-250 foam blocks at flight-worn RCC panels from other shuttles. Velocity, angle, everything matched the Columbia strike as closely as possible. The July 7, 2003 test was the “smoking gun.” The foam punched a massive ~16-inch hole straight through the RCC panel.

It basically took an act of congress to get this guy his job back. After the 1986 Challenger disaster, Morton Thiokol engineer Allan McDonald was demoted for refusing to approve the cold-weather launch and for testifying honestly before the Rogers Commission. Representative Edward Markey introduced a resolution threatening Thiokol's NASA contracts over retaliation against whistleblowers. The pressure led the company to reinstate and promote McDonald. He even worked on the redesign of the O-ring issue. This is a notable case of Congress stepping in to protect a key whistleblower. -------------------------------------- Here's an action packed excerpt from one of his interviews I came across: "...and then George Hardy at Huntsville said 'Well we need to have that recommendation put in writing and signed by a responsible Thiokol official,' and I know who that responsible Thiokol official was. That was me! That was my job. That's why I was at the cape. I did the smartest thing I ever did in my lifetime. I refused to sign the recommendation. I just didn't feel comfortable with it and because of that my boss had to sign it and fax it down to me. Well I made a couple of very prophetic statements that night when I was waiting for this fax to come that was signed by my boss authorizing to proceed with the launch. I was very upset uh and I told NASA that I don't know who made this recommendation. I really don't care if it's the CEO, but you can't accept it because you know, and I know, you're asking us to fly those solid rocket boosters outside of what they were qualified to fly in. That's a violation of protocol. You can't do that! I sure hope nothing happens tomorrow but if it does, I'm not going to be the person to stand before a board of inquiry and tell them that I gave you my approval to launch my rocket boosters in an environment that they were never qualified to fly in. And that ended the conversation."

There are 96 bags, just like this one, full of urine and feces sitting on the Moon's surface. The Apollo crew dumped them to save weight before liftoff from the lunar surface

:Years after Neil Armstrong’s death, his widow Carol made an astonishing discovery while sorting through a closet at their home.Tucked away inside a simple white cloth bag — known to astronauts as the “McDivitt Purse” — she found a hidden treasure from humanity’s greatest adventure: the very 16mm movie camera that had captured the historic footage of the Apollo 11 lunar module’s tense descent to the Moon and Neil Armstrong’s first steps on another world.Mission rules were clear — to save every precious ounce of weight for the return trip, equipment like this camera was supposed to be left behind in the Lunar Module Eagle, abandoned on the lunar surface forever. But Armstrong quietly decided otherwise. He brought the camera (along with several other small artifacts) home as a personal keepsake, telling no one — not even NASA — for nearly 45 years.The bag and its contents remained a secret until Carol’s find, after which she generously donated them to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, where they now serve as extraordinary, intimate relics of the Moon landing.This quiet act of sentiment from the first man on the Moon adds a deeply human touch to one of history’s most monumental achievements.Source: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Congrats for sticking the landing AGAIN @blueorigin! I guess the odds were indeed in your favor.

Dang! The Sat V is haulin ass by comparison in this side by side

Not enough people have seen Gene’s reaction to this mission. True space nerds will appreciate this gem.

April 13th - Apollo 13 day. Jim later recounted how when he saw the gas out the window, he knew they were in deep doo doo.

I just wanted to share this. Gene Kranz, Apollo flight director, on Artemis 2 imagery and more. Pretty rare interview IMO youtu.be/qUfKtg1qbYk?si=o0cd…

Three years ago today I fell in love again. Thank you Starship for reigniting my passion for spaceflight.

God Lord! What a difference a few years and bitchin’ engineerin’ can make.