This week's Featured Links post has links to articles about how an update to the Drake equation suggests we may be alone in the galaxy, how Hispanics in South Florida are fighting disinformation, will Musk's Starlink satellites lead to Kessler syndrome, and more.
BREAKING NEWS:
Space debris from SpaceX Dragon capsule crashed on a hiking trail in North Carolina mountains.
...
I guess this is to be expected.
I guess we're all OK with this now.
Until a Starlink satellite deorbits into a Senator's house or SpaceX launch debris falls into Mar-a-Lago, NYC, or Washington, DC, Americans won't care or do anything about this.
Sure, we won't be able to launch anything anymore, it'll be raining shit for a while, and space will become unusable, but Elon will have made his government-subsidized billions, and people will have "cheap" internet for as long as it lasts.
We’re gearing up for the fourth flight test of Starship, SpaceX’s megarocket, on Thursday (pending FAA approval) and…it feels like there’s more pressure on this test than previous ones.
Here’s my rundown on this mission, and what I think SpaceX has to get right:
The head of six companies, including a major U.S. military communications contractor and a company that puts wires in peoples' brains, wants you to know that he considers filing fraudulent business records to be a trivial matter.
File this under news that doesn’t surprise us one bit, but a new report from the Wall Street Journal states that Elon Musk has been speaking with Donald Trump “several times a month” on a wide range of political topics, from “voter fraud” to illegal immigration.
Top of Musk’s priorities for this blossoming friendship, says @Gizmodo, is to ensure his businesses benefit if Trump is elected again in November — perhaps fuelled by the former president's recent announcement that he wants to stop EV sales in the U.S. if he wins. Musk is also keen to get Trump back onto X, following his ban in 2021. Here’s more.
"The world's first wooden satellite has been built by Japanese researchers who said their tiny cuboid craft is scheduled to be carried into space on a SpaceX rocket in September."
CBS News reports: "The creators expect the wooden material will burn up completely when the device re-enters the atmosphere -- potentially providing a way to avoid the creation of metal particles when a retired satellite returns to Earth."