The SpaceX ones are privately funded, so who cares if the first generation of them sucks? At least they’re trying and might have a path to success.

At least these are “only” the ISS suits, not the Lunar surface suits from Axiom, so this doesn’t make the Artemis situation worse. Hopefully SpaceX can evolve their new suits enough to be useful for space station EVAs for Vast or whoever.

Setting this up as a task order contract never made sense to me. Firm fixed price for this also doesn’t make sense to me. It’s a development program with 0 commercial customers and no ability to lease them to private customers. What a weird, late, mess.

They can thank CASC for the upcoming acid rain. Yeesh.

I just want to point out that the acronym for this analog is “FMARS”.

It’s cool to see it up and running again after it was out of commission for years.

The ISS has always been a source of soft diplomacy, and it’s cool to see the short private missions expand that. It’s cool that Dragon is available and able to make these possible.

Regarding Gaganyaan to the ISS- their first crewed flight is NET… late 2025? Their timeline could work to get one to the ISS. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them book a flight to a Vast station. They also signed something or other with Blue for Orbital Reef, so that could be their target, too.

200 modules in the backlog is pretty good! They must have hit on some constellation contracts, but I’m not seeing much from a quick search. This is that growth of the industrial base that the different three letter agencies were talking about.

Elite name

Crewed Dreamchaser is so far from being real

And while ABL and Firefly can’t hit any kind of cadence

Between the EV3, EX30, R3, and little Jeep EV, I’m hoping that small EVs change some American minds about car size and reverse some of the arms race. They still aren’t small small, but at least they aren’t an F150 or Suburban.

A purpose built skateboard chassis is still good for a low center of gravity, bigger battery capacity, and ease of manufacturing, but I would gladly pass on a lot of bells and whistles and “luxury” features.

Rocket Lab, Stoke, and Relativity are all trying!

I’m a Blue Origin hater, too. They pretend to be an old space prime by buying their way into a market but not having done anything. They don’t have the drive, efficiency, or fun redeeming qualities of startups.

For rockets, I would rather see Stoke pull off Nova and Rocket Lab build Neutron.

For space stations, I’m rooting for Vast and Gravitics.

For space tugs, go Impulse.

For moon landers, BO copied SpaceX’s homework, so go Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic.

I think this is their first full satellite contract for the US side of the company? They make a lot of parts (star trackers, sun sensors, solar arrays, cameras…) so there’s a chance for some vertical integration. Neat.

Not Grande enough for Americans. Maybe we’ll get the Venti Panda or Trenta Panda.

I won’t be able to afford it, but I’m still glad they’re electrifying toys for rich people. Every source of pollution and noise that gets taken off the road is a win by me.

Go VIPER? It’s weird to me that the article didn’t mention it. Hopefully IM-2 and Viper both launch this year. And Blue Ghost, even though it isn’t looking for water.

Only Starship, Shuttle, and SpaceShipTwo count.

Let Ingenuity be the best space rotorcraft. Until Dragonfly shows up.

That’s still only a $15-20k car

And neither will we