Main Engine Cut Off

A few interesting documents have been released: the late-but-final 2018 appropriations, NASA’s lunar cargo lander request for information, and the public summary of the NASA Independent Review Team’s ...

23 Mars 201828min

NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot appeared in front of the space subcommittee of the House Science Committee to discuss the 2019 NASA budget request, and I’ve got some thoughts on their decis...

9 Mars 201827min

NASA recently began talking about some contingency planning for potential Commercial Crew delays, and the end-of-ISS discussion is heating up. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by ...

23 Feb 201822min

SpaceX launched Falcon Heavy last week and shook up the space launch world. I spend some time thinking through SpaceX’s motivations for building Falcon Heavy, and what its effects might be on the worl...

13 Feb 201834min

The Commercial Crew program—NASA, SpaceX, Boeing, and more—went in front of Congress to discuss the current status of the crew launch systems in development. Concurrently, the GAO released a report wa...

30 Jan 201823min

The US Air Force has developed a viable corridor for launching to polar and other high-inclination orbits from Cape Canaveral. I spend some time thinking through who may be interested in using that co...

17 Jan 201823min

Robin Seemangal joins me for a free-flowing discussion on the stories we found most important in 2017 and what we’re looking forward to in 2018, including SpaceX’s huge year, Blue Origin’s under-the-r...

27 Dec 20171h 4min

Mike Lewis, CTO of NanoRacks joins me to talk about what they’re working on today, as well as their big plans for the future, including their upcoming airlock and the Ixion project—their ongoing work ...

20 Dec 201748min