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aren't most astronauts passengers?

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I'm not really sure what the point of tracking "first methalox launch to orbit" is in the first place. Feels like just a No True Scotsman game. I'm excited to see all of these rockets launch but the fuel they use is not a primary reason why I'm excited.

>mutual fund approach

That's such a weird way to phrase the very basic and logical concept of "not putting all your eggs in one basket"

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*trying to think of a good short joke that would apply here*

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They can't put phone books on your chair so you can see over the dash.

Fair point. In that light, the first "real" methalox attempts to orbit are the upcoming Terran 1 and Starship flights.

For all you ‘Muricans, 157cm = 61.8” = 5’-1 13/16”.

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Sounds more like they wana hook up their friends.

I’m curious if the barycenter is still in the star, the article doesn’t mention it.

> I'm going to set up my speaker system and play tibetan throat music while I mediate out loud.

I think we might ride the same bus.

The U.S. military is preparing to buy another round of rocket launches from companies next year, and Space Force leadership says they’re taking a new “mutual fund approach” to the acquisition strategy.

“As opposed to picking a single stock, we pick two different approaches, because we thought that would best allow the government to pivot,” said Colonel Chad Melone, the chief of the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command’s Launch Procurement & Integration division, in a press briefing on Friday.

Earlier this month the Space Force kicked off the process to buy five years worth of launches, under a lucrative program known as National Security Space Launch Phase 3. In 2020, the second phase of NSSL awarded contracts to two companies – Elon Musk’s SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, the joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin– for about 40 military missions, worth about $1 billion per year.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/24/space-force-rocket-launch-acquisitions-approach.html

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If you can't reach controls while you're strapped into a seat, you could only ever be a passenger - and that industry is still nascent

It's clickbait headlines (and stories) like this that make space.com the pile of pulp it is.

Your comment made me realize that there's a deeper assumption at the core: that any aliens emitting radio messages want to be heard.

"if the universe is so big, then why won't it fight me?"

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i just got offered a test stand position with blue..

This really bugs me. Zhuque-2's methane stage operated nominally and a later unrelated stage failed. That has no bearing on "methane engine to orbit" and only has any possible bearing on "a rocket with some methane in it has a fully nominal mission". If the point is methane fueled to orbit, Vulcan and New Glenn (lol) are not in the running, since their methane stages don't get the vehicles to orbit.