Main Engine Cut Off

If it wasn’t clear in my post yesterday, I’m annoyed at California’s overly-broad definition of aerospace manufacturers that allows Virgin Orbit to keep its facilities open in any capacity.

I don’t think Astra should be prepping its next launch attempt this week.

The amount of people I could hear in the background of SpaceX’s Starlink webcast 4 days ago made me uncomfortable.

I’m skeptical that the three NRO payloads Rocket Lab is launching next week are of such a high priority, but New Zealand can do whatever they want to do.

Again, I’d be more than willing to make exceptions for launch campaigns like Perseverance, Commercial Crew, and other high priority, time-sensitive things.

But even NASA has stopped most if not all work on SLS and James Web Space Telescope. Those should be huge indicators of the right call here.

I think we should have stopped domestic air travel in the US a week ago.

Stay home. Don’t see other people. Work remotely if you can, and help people around you who aren’t so lucky.

At a certain point, we can collectively make the shutdown suck for 2–3 weeks, or we can half-ass it and let it linger for 2–3 months or longer.