Main Engine Cut Off

We cover a lot of ground in this round of questions, nearly all focused on the future—ISS crew scheduling, ISS facilities, ISRO human spaceflight, science missions, and launch vehicles.

I wanted to spend some time breaking down a few news items from last week that may be leading indicators of trends for 2019: layoffs at Stratolaunch, Tethers Unlimited, and SpaceX, and Relativity signed a lease for Launch Complex 16 at Cape Canaveral.

Chris Gebhardt of NASASpaceflight joins me to talk all things SpaceX: Starship and its upcoming hopper tests, DM-1 and the government shutdown, and more.

This month I tackle questions on future space architectures, companies working in space right now, and finish with a 2018 Top 10 ranking.

Jonathan McDowell joins me to talk about his recent paper proposing 80 kilometers, rather than 100, as a more appropriate boundary of the edge of space.

Jake Robins of WeMartians joins me to talk InSight, Mars EDL, and Mars 2020.

NASA announced the nine companies that will be competing for Commercial Lunar Payload Services missions. I share some thoughts on the program overall, and discuss what we know about each company.

This month for Q&A, we try to figure out what the hell is up with DM-1, hit a few questions about launch, and talk through a few space development topics.

As I was recording yesterday’s show about Starlink, SpaceX filed an application with the FCC for some changes to the Starlink plan. I read through the report and it confirms some of what I talked about yesterday, so thought it was worth an update.

I share some space-focused takeaways from the US midterm elections and a thought that I had about recent Starlink reports.