Reading up on space

SpaceX launched the first commercial nuclear-powered satellite, BOHR, a City Labs cubesat that uses tritium decay to generate electricity.

SpaceX's $2 trillion valuation is a speculative bubble driven by hype, not Starlink's connectivity economics or competitive prospects.

SpaceX showed investors a slim, handset-like AI prototype running xAI's software on a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset, though the project is early-stage and may not be produced.

SpaceX plans to deploy Starmind, a constellation of one million AI compute satellites in orbit, aiming to make terrestrial data centers obsolete.

S&P 500 rejects rule changes that would have fast-tracked SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic into the index, maintaining standard eligibility criteria like profitability and a one-year seasoning period.

SpaceX's secret Starfall capsule, a disk-shaped reentry vehicle with 30x competitors' payload capacity, aims to dominate orbital manufacturing and return logistics.

The US must treat space as a warfighting domain, adopting first-principles strategies and commercial innovation to counter adversaries like China and Russia.

SpaceX's Starlink generated more revenue in 2023 than all other commercial space companies combined, demonstrating the financial power of vertical integration and rapid iteration over traditional aerospace contracting.

Elon Musk's net worth exceeded $1 trillion after SpaceX shares surged 20% on their first day of trading, making him the first trillionaire.

SpaceX's IPO creates trillionaire Elon Musk and big paydays for executives, venture capitalists, and college endowments holding stakes.

NASA's Artemis III timeline is ambitious, with experts doubting the agency can meet its goal of returning humans to the Moon by the stated date.

SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI's potential IPOs could create about 20 new billionaires among their employees.

SpaceX's improbable success, from an idea Musk saw as having a less than 10% chance to a $2 trillion valuation, is chronicled.

Gwynne Shotwell delivers her full speech from NASDAQ, highlighting SpaceX’s achievements and future goals.

Investors question SpaceX's $1.77 trillion valuation as the company loses money and faces skepticism about its revenue projections.

Justin Fishner-Wolfson, a long-time early SpaceX investor and minor Musk ally, now controls a multibillion-dollar payout from his stake.

NASA astronaut Jessica Meir shared a video from the ISS showing a snakelike aurora australis, captured during the Crew-12 mission.

An initial public offering of SpaceX could make its 4,400 current and former employees millionaires, while Elon Musk approaches trillionaire status.

NASA's 2028 Moon landing goal depends heavily on the decisions and timelines of Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin.

NASA's Artemis III mission will be crewed by four men, three with extensive space experience and one previously a backup for Artemis II.

The SpaceX IPO exemplifies how hype and speculative optimism, fueled by regulatory changes and an insular investor ecosystem, have broken the stock market's link to fundamentals.

Brendan Carr, the FCC chairman, has approved Starlink regulatory requests and praised Elon Musk, easing the path for SpaceX's IPO.

Wall Street banks are offering their wealthiest clients exclusive access to SpaceX's public listing to deepen relationships in the wealth management business.

SpaceX disclosed a $30 billion deal where Google will pay $920 million monthly for AI computing power, ahead of the rocket company's IPO.

Gwynne Shotwell serves as the stabilizing force at SpaceX, counterbalancing Elon Musk, as the company readies for a blockbuster IPO.

Space enthusiasts celebrate SpaceX's impending IPO as a catalyst for advancing cosmic exploration and discovery.

Wall Street banks, led by Jamie Dimon, are preparing for SpaceX's IPO, projected as the largest ever, with massive fee potential.

The failure of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket severely delays Blue Moon lander readiness, forcing NASA to rely more heavily on SpaceX's Starship for Artemis missions.

A rocket explosion on the launchpad sets back Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin and Amazon, which had been gaining on SpaceX and Starlink.

SpaceX's $2T IPO lacks financial justification, but data centers in space for agentic AI inference could make the valuation plausible.

SpaceX filed an S-1 registration statement for an initial public offering, disclosing its financials and business risks.

Darsana Capital Partners, a little-known hedge fund, stands to make over $10 billion on its SpaceX investment if the rocket maker goes public at a $1.5 trillion valuation.

SpaceX plans to reduce Falcon 9 launches from 165 in 2025 to roughly 140-145 in 2026 as it shifts focus and launch infrastructure toward the larger Starship rocket.

A Falcon 9 upper stage from a January 2025 launch will strike the Moon's near side on August 5 at 5,400 mph, astronomers say.

Original Apollo 11 moon landing TV broadcast footage was preserved and restored, highlighting the technical and historical significance of the event.

A reportedly AI-generated analysis claims to have found a lock-leak bug in Apollo 11's guidance computer, but HN commenters dispute whether the bug is real and whether the reproduction script actually demonstrates it.

SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell outlines the company's merger with xAI, AI integration in rocketry, Starlink's 10 million subscribers, and plans for AI satellites and lunar manufacturing.

Falling launch costs and rising terrestrial constraints will make space-based AI data centers cheaper than Earth-based ones within a decade, potentially creating a trillion-dollar annual CapEx market for inference workloads.

Elon's podcast reveals confused AI alignment, plans for space data centers and human obsolescence, while xAI's safety team has fled and he attacks critics.

Hacker News commenters argue that space data centers face insurmountable cooling, power, and cost challenges, making the concept physically and economically impractical.

Elon Musk merges SpaceX with his AI startup xAI, creating the most valuable private company by combining their resources and operations.

Blue Origin is halting its New Shepard space tourism flights for at least two years to concentrate on fulfilling NASA lunar contracts.

NASA's Artemis II rocket rolled to the launch pad, targeting a February launch pending a successful wet dress rehearsal and heat shield review.

The WSJ profiles Gwynne Shotwell's role managing crises like Musk's threat to decommission a spacecraft as SpaceX's IPO approaches.

A.I. data centers may exhaust earth's land and energy, prompting tech leaders to explore orbital deployment for unlimited space and solar power.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center will close its research library on Friday, discarding or warehousing unique historical documents from early space exploration.

Jared Isaacman is confirmed as NASA administrator, facing challenges of budget cuts, workforce reductions, and competition with China in returning humans to the Moon.

SpaceX and Blue Origin are racing to develop orbital AI data centers, aiming to bypass Earthly power constraints despite major engineering and cost hurdles.

Blue Origin plans an early 2026 cargo flight to the moon and a more powerful New Glenn rocket, aiming to accelerate its pace after years of methodical development.