mastodon 4.7.3Lifelong space enthusiast from UK, interested in social and practical aspects of spaceflight and exploration. Dad to an aspiring astronaut!
We need to thrive in space, not just go there.
Main account @davoloid@mastodon.me.uk
*Le sigh*. Once again SpaceX showing that "move fast and break things" and "iterative development" is not always the best approach when it comes to large scale complex vehicles. When you've mucked up a couple of times and caused massive impact to other people, you need to rethink your assumptions and testing regimes.
The (comparitive) success of New Glenn in January should have been a wakeup call.
Trailer for a documentary on Constance Adams, visionary architect who worked on the space programme, a brilliant body of work cut short by her untimely death in 2018.
She recognised that the problems that needed to be solved when designing for space habitats had applications for sustainable living on earth. https://youtu.be/lwVGWjGatps
Screenings in Vancouver and Toronto in coming weeks, and Mumbai and Chicago next year. Hopefully more widely.
https://spacearchitect.org/the-space-architect-a-documentary-honoring-constance-adams/
Catching up on the TU Wien lectures on "Emerging fields in Architecture". These are presented by leading #SpaceArchitect Dr Sandra Häuplik-Meusburger.
Here, Theodore W. Hall discusses what impacts gravity has on architectural design constraints, and specifically what this means for #SpaceHabitats.
#SpaceX have produced a new set of renders of the HLS version of Starship, for the Artemis programme. And I gotta say, it's underwhelming again. The sort of thing that looks flashy, but has no grounding in practicality.
There's a whole field of research that takes into account what it's like to live and work in space, and none of that is present here. See https://spacearchitect.org/ for examples.
Any #SpaceArchitect types in the Fediverse care to comment?
New #NASA administrator demonstrating already that he has no real interest in the preservation of the #Shuttle. It's a typical showy announcement with no grounding in the practical realities. https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/08/houston-youve-got-a-space-shuttle-only-nasa-wont-say-which-one/
They could have had Isaacman but they went with the reality TV dolt.
We don't often hear about the cultural aspects of Space exploration, the tension between political ambitions and human needs. This sounds excellent.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/aug/06/all-female-rescue-mission-mars-opera-toxic-tech-bro-takeover-red-planet-jennifer-walshe-abbey
Queen of the Skies Peggy Whitson heads back to space for the Axiom 4 mission to the ISS.
She's one of the most accomplished astronauts ever, having flown to space 5 times, spent over 675 days in space, and 60 hours performing EVAs.
Also hold two patents stemming from her research career in Biochemistry.
As with all the New Shephard launches, I think yesterday's spectacle was negative rather than positive for the aims of human spaceflight. It gives detractors a chance to whine about the waste of money and pollution, and misogynists more fuel. There *was* still a risk to the passengers, they have had to overcome personal fears, true. But it's all distraction from real work that's actually being undertaken by women astronauts and the many on earth who build spacecraft and support missions.
Was sent this advert for a space related summer school run by Kings College London. The cost is probably worth it, but that still excludes a huge number of kids. Most egregious though, is that it's within term time, so only available to kids from private schools. As the feedback comments show. More needs to be done on #wideningparticipation
Ok it's note real space stuff (yet), but this is awesome: Blender artist renders Interstellar docking scene in Lego. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqSPkZ-jny8