alt Hacker NewsWe've run a dozen missions in LEO aboard the ISS. Any steps to remove the friction to launch and increase the cadence is a good thing. Spending a few weeks in LEO missions like this typically land in the Australian outback
We do education outreach to K-16 learning institutions around the world. There are many things that can be studied in the near absence of gravity. Fluids are a huge area of research (surface tension, sedimentation, etc). We germinate seeds and look for genetic changes, people study brain organoids, artificial retinas, crystals, et al
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Howdy Ted! It has been a while! Hope you're doing well! Glad that you're still at it. SSGL misses you! <3
Any indication what the price difference might be? (e.g. 20% less, 50%, 90%!?)
I read that SpaceX's engines deliver a bit more thrust at a bit less mass than NASA engines. But the kicker was SpaceX's were 1/200th the cost. From the cost angle it's very interesting observing space activities going from mostly public to mostly private.
Yeah, I’m not mad at this. There’s a lot around SpaceX that makes it hard to really see what an offering from them is*, but this actually looks legitimately interesting - a way to run medium-to-long-term microgravity experiments with a proper data uplink and power structure could be a real boon for a lot of interesting science. Turning microgravity into a purchasable commodity, instead of something you need a specialized project for, is genuinely one of those “human capacity building” things.
* (definitely feel free to fill in the seventy volumes of dialogue I left out of this comment in the replies, though)