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Here's Ellie in Space's take and interview:
Isaacman personally flies his own MiG 29, and is a 3000+ hour pilot; his former company, Draken, International, operated a fleet primarily consisting of Czech-built L-39 Albatross jets that were available to our military to serve as surrogates for enemy fighters. Last year there was some presence at the Bozeman, Montana International Airport during the training for the Polaris Dawn mission.
Hopefully, Isaacman will be speedily confirmed. If so--he will undoubtedly OK an attempt to re-boost and repair the Hubble Space Telescope, which he had previously offered to do as Polaris Mission 2--at no expense to NASA or the US Government.
Today, civilian astronaut Jared Isaacman was nominated by President-elect Trump. The SLS is now really on the chopping block with Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk running the new Department Of Government Efficiency, or "DOGE."
GW-
I agree that the Internet and YouTube are rife with misinformation and click bait. The channels that I distrust are those with AI voiceover as the narration, which are mostly "clickbait." The ones I follow all have presenters that are pretty conservative in their presented information:
Scott Manley, WhatAboutIt (Felix Schlang), NASASpaceflight (several presenters), Marcus House, EverydayAstronaut (Tim Dodd), and AngryAstronaut (Jordan XXXXX). This group seems to not engage in hyperbole, and stick to fact based reporting.
Bob-
I watched this video and there are are other sources on YouTube voicing similar concerns. As an old Army Medic in my younger days, my assessment of her condition is that she is maybe "healthy" from a disease perspective, but the condition of both her hands and forearms tell another story. I would describe her condition as "gaunt." NASA shouldn't expand the number of instances wherein they kill astronauts. Her dedication to her professional career is undoubtedly why she's saying everything is all all smiles and a bed of roses, and protecting NASA administrators.
The "Angry Astronaut" has started a 2 part series based on what NASA has just released as a possible new plan for the colonization of Mars.
I just finished watching the first episode and it seems that NASA may have read some of the stuff from this website, especially the crew size for a first manned mission (between 10 and maybe 20 astronauts).
I do recommend this video, as it isn't too hand-wavey, and contains some well thought out commentary.
I recall when Nixon pulled the plug on the remaining Apollo Missions. I was highly pissed off because we were truly on a reasonable trajectory towards our first Mars missions with Von Braun in charge.
There were several features that most commenters overlook, beyond the rising costs of the Vietnam war, but it was driven by Nixon's personal animus towards John Kennedy. JFK's name will be forever remembered for his famous speech about putting man on the moon by "the end of the decade." Nixon didn't want to keep funding a Kennedy & Johnson space program
As GW points out, the initial Mars probes hadn't yet identified the Solar Flare hazard, nor was there any idea about the long-term effects of microgravity on human biology.
We're currently watching an increasingly incompetent NASA complaining about schedule management of retrieval of Butch Wilmore and Sunni Williams, as Sunni's health has become a MAJOR issue. She needs to be brought back NOW, not in another 3 months! The NASA scientists are political hacks at this juncture. Her drastic weight loss is gonna kill her if they don't bring her down NOW!
I just picked this out of the ever increasing number of Space-Oriented YouTube presentations.
It seems to be VERY factually based!
This is an exciting prospect!
Another link to one of the more reliable and realistic reporters on the IFT6!
Marcus House, Scott Manley, and Felix are all great, along with Tim Dodd.
Here's a link to Marcus House.
Here's a link to the SpaceX notes stating the tower was definitely the issue, as the tower initiated the landing abort into the ocean.
The reason for water landing given by several commenters was damage to the launch tower radio antenna, which was seen to be clearly bent in post-flight photos. This is speculation on their parts, but the actual damage was visible.
GW--
I did a Google search to determine the as-launched mass of Europa Clipper, and it's approximately 6,000 kg. The dry mass is 3,241 kg. The difference is fuel mass, 2,750 kg, to be used for flight path corrections and orbital insertion.
The 18 November date has been confirmed by the issuance of a NOTAM by the FAA for that date (NOtices To AirMen).
I suspect the next IFT will essentially be a near repeat of the last one. The FAA license approved both IFT 5 and IFT 6, but if there are significant changes, they will necessitate a new one.
Back to the business at hand: the date being bandied about for IFT6 is still 11 November. Nothing has been stated regarding mission profile, however.
For GW: I use the $14/month no ads service and am very sorry that you experienced the advertising avalance you described!
Rodger
Now that Europa Clipper has successfully launched, as has the ESA Icy Moons "Juice" probe, we can all sit back and age gracefully for 6 years until Europa Clipper arrives in the Jovian system. We should definitely learn a LOT from these 2 probes, and EC has flybys of both Ganymede and Callisto included in their mission profiles.
Link to recovery of hot staging ring:
Update: SpaceX recovered the hot staging ring from the Gulf of Mexico today!
Regardless of the cause of the final conflagration after landing, SpaceX seem undeterred by the incident. I heard an announcement earlier today that SpaceX intend to have another launch in early November of Booster 13 and Ship 31. I can't recall off the top of my head, but the channel on YouTube is one of the more reliable ones. The date sticking in my mind was 11/11/2024.
I checked back with my browsing history and it was Felix on "What About It."
Here's a link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gadcivnT0Hc
Here's a link to Scott Manley's report on the SpaceX launch of Europa Clipper with a detailed description of the scientific instrumentation onboard and the goals of the mission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYieX09IgXw
I only posted the video because it showed an issue with solar panels that I strongly disapprove of. Especially when a viable alternative (nuclear power--Thorium based) already exists. In Europe, where the Greens forced the EU to adopt solar and wind power, these alternative energy sources have already been shown to be unreliable. In Germany (where I recently visited for 5 weeks) there are so-called Wind Farms which are idled due to lack of enough constant winds, and there are now coal mines reopening because of the war in Ukraine preventing import of natural gas.
I happened upon this short video of what I really don't want to see happen to Mars.
When Louis started this particular thread, I cautioned that the landscape would be overwhelmed by solar panels.
"Enjoy!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym1nmefir3w
As a side note, the YouTube presentations boil down to two types: live presenters and AI generated clickbait. Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) is possibly the best of all the live presenters, followed by Felix Schlang (What About It), and then a few others on NSF (Nasa Space Flight). Scott Manley and Marcus House are both top notch, along with Fraser Cain. Most of the others have AI generated voices mispronouncing key words that simply drive me nuts. Other decent presenters are Ellie in Space, and the Angry Astronaut, although Angry Astronaut has become obsessed somewhat with UFO's and aliens, recently. The live presenters are mostly very well informed and knowledgeable. The click bait AI is hard to avoid, but with all the info available now, one has to become more selective to manage one's time spent websurfing,
Here's the link to another video from Fraser Cain, in which Marcus House and Scott Manley combine with Fraser to dissect the entire mission in great detail. A great compilation of footage is included. Oven an hour long, but is the definitive post flight video.