What Have You Launched Today?
An interview with the SLS rocket itself, new JWST pictures, and gas stations… in space?
Hello Continuum readers and Celestial Citizens,
If you are like us or launch pad 39B, this past week might have had you saying “danger, danger, high voltage.” References to music from 2002 aside, there have been a lot of ups and downs in the space community lately. Here’s hoping that you didn’t experience an awkward Artemis 1 watch party moment or two over the last couple of weeks. Just remember scrubs are part of the process and launches, much like my toddler, will leave the house when they are good and ready.
But if you still have a bad case of the lunar lows, then do yourself a favor and check out Lamorne Morris’ latest space comedy sketch. I think the Malcolm SpaceX company is onto something with their spacesuit design - certainly an improvement over what we’ve got today.
We’ve got a lot of great stuff packed into today’s newsletter - including an exclusive interview with SLS (yes, the rocket) - and lots of other space news from the week. So let’s get to that space beat…
Between Two Launch Pads: an interview with SLS
As crews work to fix the hydrogen leak that caused the second scrub in a week, we caught up with SLS on the launch pad. As we approached, it was hard not to feel inspired by the sheer magnificence – years of hard work that have been put in just to get SLS to this moment. But as we took our seats for the interview, we also noticed something else: SLS seemed tired.
Was it the pressure that got to you?
“Yeah of course – I mean that definitely was a contributing factor. Everybody is always ‘Starship, Starship, Starship’ and never ‘SLS, SLS, SLS.’ Sometimes it’s hard to try to feel seen in a launch environment where everyone expects you to fit into an image of reusability. When most of the time, I’m the one that ends up feeling used. Like, I don’t even get to be the launch vehicle that takes humans back to the Moon. The best thing NASA gave me was a ‘moonikin.’ No one ever talks about what comes next for a rocket like me when the mission ends. It all got too heavy (literally) and I knew I needed some additional time for self-care to get my engines in the right place.”
Do you think that NASA’s unofficial slogan “failure is not an option,” is part of what contributed to this?
“Of course. You try living your life error-free and see how you handle it.”
How do you feel when you see all the commentary and memes on social media about the launch scrubs?
“It can really mess with your confidence. I think all of us rockets deal with imposter syndrome to a certain degree. What we are trying to do is rocket science, so naturally you start to doubt whether you are up to the task. So I’m announcing here first, that I’ll be doing a social media cleanse for a couple of weeks to clear my head.”
What would you say to the contractors that have been working to get you launch ready?
“Next question.”
Do you feel like you are competing with the memory of Apollo?
“Well on the one hand, no, because Saturn V has nothing on me. When I’m ready to go, I’ll be generating 15% more thrust than Saturn V ever did. Also, I’ve got the tallest core stage in the game. But you know, excellence can’t be rushed. And my little buddy, Orion is going to help capture the victory by traveling 40,000 miles past the Moon and surpassing anything the Apollo command modules were able to do. But Apollo is a ghost that lives in glory, so people will never come for it. So there will always be a sense that I have to live up to Apollo and then some - I mean you hear what the people say. We are going. To stay.”
Did you have any influence in selecting your color scheme?
“Not really, but they do say that orange is the new black and clearly my looks are serving. All of you are so thirsty for a photograph that it’s a little embarrassing. Also, the bottoms up shots are a little voyeuristic so cut that s*** out.”
A lot of people have brought up the fact that your relative, the space shuttle, also had experiences with hydrogen leaks. Is history repeating itself?
“Yeah, I mean this runs in the family. It’s something everyone has to overcome, or else it consumes them. Literally. I’m done sweeping things under the rug. There’s been a generational shift in talking about our mental health more openly, and I believe that hydrogen leaks should fall under that category.”
Got a message for the critics and naysayers out there?
“Yeah a question really - what have you launched today?”
[We hope you enjoyed our comedic take on the events of the last two weeks. Let us know if you’d like to see more things like this in the newsletter!]
Top Headlines
We Are Going - If you hadn’t heard by now that the Artemis 1 launch was scrubbed well… we admire your commitment to only receiving news from us. NASA’s uncrewed launch of SLS and the Orion capsule was scrubbed twice, largely due to hydrogen leaks, and is currently eyeing a new launch window for likely later in October, but opening as early as September 23rd. Safety is of the utmost importance, uncrewed launch or not, and at the end of the day, we are going. While NASA operates on SLS on the launch pad and we wait for the announcement of the next launch date, why not check out some other stories that came out from all the Artemis hype? The Guardian wrote about what other things will be going up on this uncrewed mission (hint: there’s mannequins involved), while Space.com covered the Meteor Crater in Arizona, where astronauts have been putting on their Moon training wheels since the Apollo mission.
Lunar Resources – Are you concerned about the future management of lunar resources? If not, this op-ed from Cassandra Steer details why maybe you should be. The deputy director of InSpace at the Australian National University details how lunar resources and who controls access to them will become an increasingly important question - and one that is steeped in geopolitical tension. And on the topic of national space agendas, China and Russia have also stated their intention on working together to get to the moon, planning their International Lunar Research Station which aims to set up shop at the Moon’s South Pole, like Artemis.
More Missions – For a price tag of $1.4 billion, NASA has contracted five more astronaut missions to the ISS that SpaceX will be the launch provider for. Per NASA, this allows them to “maintain an uninterrupted U.S. capability for human access to the space station until 2030, with two unique commercial crew industry partners.”
Space Force – Clear Space Force Station in Alaska is getting a new addition: The construction of a ground station that will serve “as the gateway for the Enhanced Polar Systems-Recapitalization (EPS-R) payload.” These polar communication payloads will be controlled from the station and will launch next year on a Space Norway mission launching out of Vandenberg.
Hi From an Old Friend – Voyager 1’s signal was picked up by the Alien Telescope Array (ATA) in California back on July 9. Voyager is the most distant human made object from Earth, so not only does catching the signal reassure us that Voyager is still operational, but it also demonstrates the power of the ATA as it continues to search for life outside of our solar system. After 45 years, it’s hard to believe that Voyager is still sailing along, but according to NBC News, it could be just getting started.
JWST Round Up
Don’t worry, The Big Bang Theory is still safe (the theory, not the show)
Ghosts in Space? Nope, just the Phantom Galaxy.
Saturn probably isn’t jealous of these “Squircular” Rings around star WR140… right?
Put on your headphones, JWST photos got sonified!
Settle down 'Expanse' fans...it's not that Ring. But this image of an "Einstein Ring" is still pretty stunning.
I’m not killing this spider in space… because it’s beautiful.
It’s no Arrakis but … it’s pretty close.
A Global Space
UK Space Power – On September 1st, the UK released their military’s keystone doctrine publication focused on the space domain “UK Space Power.” Per Space News, “A central message is that space is a global domain; and military, civil and commercial space activities are intertwined.” You can read all 91 pages of “UK Space Power” here.
China – Earlier this week, China accused the US of hacking into the information systems at Northwestern Polytechnical University, a “government-funded university with aeronautics and space research programs.” (This is your friendly reminder to regularly change your passwords!) They also launched the Yaogan 33 (02) satellite that “will monitor land, crop yield and natural disasters” … and also maybe gather military intelligence.
ESA – Director General of ESA Josef Aschbacher spoke with Ars Tehcnica about his thoughts on working with Russia. Their invasion of Ukraine occurred less than a year into Aschbacher’s term as Director General, and the fallout between ESA and Roscosmos was swift, and severe. He told Ars - “I cannot see a rebuild of the cooperation we had in the past… this is really something where the behavior of ESA will reflect the geopolitical situation of the member states on this point. And I think this is very clear.”
The Pentagon – According to Defense News, a classified meeting was held at the Pentagon this week discuss “how China and Russia’s potential development of fractional orbital bombardment systems and space-to-ground weapons could impact U.S. deterrence and strategic stability, as well as to consider U.S. response options to the potential development of such capabilities by any adversary.”
MOONSHOT
If we’re going to get to space, we’re going to need a lot of help. In our Moonshot section, we’ll share highlights from some of the commercial companies that are taking us there:
NASA has chosen Axiom Space to develop the first moonwalking spacesuits for Artemis. After years of sci-fi have given us spacesuits ranging from Star Trek: First Contact Couture to Helios Chic, we’re so excited to see what new space suits might look like. But boy oh boy, we sure will miss those goofy videos of astronauts stumbling around on the Moon.
Orbit Fab has announced that it plans to offer its in-orbit refueling services as soon as 2025, starting with hydrazine to satellites in geostationary orbit. Aka, gas stations in space are coming soon. We’re glad we can add space as another place where you don’t have to pump your own gas (looking at you New Jersey), especially because hydrazine is extremely dangerous.
The Space Warfighting Center is now open! With a name that sounds like it could have come straight out of Starship Troopers, or Ender’s Game, this 90,000 sq ft facility opened by Aerospace Corporation in Colorado Springs, “will provide work areas and digital tools for military space agencies that design satellites and train satellite operators.” Per Space News, Aerospace CEO Steve Isakowitz said the Center “leverages cutting-edge digital tools to aid our government partners as they design and support the development, training, and testing of the nation’s future space enterprise.”
Sidus Space will partner with SpaceX for five launches next year for its LizzieSat “multi-mission LEO satellite constellation.” The space-as-a-service business, through its agreement with SpaceX, will now secure more of a consistent launch cadence which will help the business grow and continue to meet demands from a wide variety of clients that are looking for reliable satellites on which to host their payloads.
Look at Starship’s engines go! All six Raptor engines fired successfully yesterday in the static fire test. Also, they started a small grass fire but everything turned out ok!
Space Tweet of the Week
Space Reads!
Can’t get enough stellar content? Here are some pieces of space-adjacent news we’ve been reading:
A beautiful piece by Alan Lightman for The Atlantic on how searching for life in the cosmos makes us question what we call “life” in the first place.
Look at the first selfie in space in all of its remastered glory, as well as other iconic moments from our first trip to the Moon.
Need another play by play of the Artemis scrubs last week but this one with beautiful full screen images? Supercluster’s got you covered.
If you like thought experiments, could Earth leave our solar system?
Our friend Moriba Jah, and repeat guest on Celestial Citizen Podcast, wrote an op-ed for CNN about being a space environmentalist, and why you should be one too.
Things Found on the Internet
That’s a wrap for this week! A big thank you to Evan Yee for writing this edition with me. We hope you enjoyed reading Continuum this week and will share it with your friends.
We’ll see you back here in two weeks for the opening of the next launch window for SLS. So perhaps we’ll close this out with the immeasurably wise and eloquent words of Alan Shepherd - “FIX YOUR LITTLE PROBLEM AND LIGHT THIS CANDLE.”
Keep it celestial people,
Britt
CEO of Celestial Citizen & Creator of Continuum