Main Engine Cut Off

A special feature of a very-MECO episode of my other podcast, Off-Nominal, that I did this week with Michael Sheetz of CNBC and Eric Berger of Ars Technica. If you have yet to check out Off-Nominal, …

Jared Isaacman, commander of Inspiration4, announced the Polaris Program—a privately-funded development program to “rapidly advance human spaceflight capabilities” via flights on SpaceX’s Dragon and …

Eric Berger of Ars Technica joins me to talk about what’s on our radar in 2022, to predict when the big new rockets will fly, and to generally catch up on what’s going on in the space industry.

This e…

Last week I left my full-time gig at Big Cartel. I’m going independent to do more Main Engine Cut Off and Off-Nominal, and to make these space-focused projects the primary work that I do. I’m also go…

Phil McAlister, Director of Commercial Spaceflight at NASA, joins me to talk about the history of and lessons learned from the Commercial Cargo and Crew programs, what things went well and not so wel…

Bill Spetch, Manager of the ISS Vehicle Office at NASA, joins me to discuss the operational considerations of docking and berthing ports on the International Space Station, the recent traffic jams we…

Marshall Smith, Senior Vice President of Space Systems of Nanoracks, joins me to talk about Starlab, their commercial space station which recently won a contract award from NASA as part of their Comm…

Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation joins me to talk about the technical and political fallout of Russia’s recent anti-satellite weapons demonstration, the history of anti-satellite weapons a…

Russia recklessly carried out an anti-satellite operation on a large, defunct satellite in one of the most heavily-used and most important sections of Earth orbit. I share my thoughts on the operatio…

Commercial space station mania! Blue Origin, Sierra Space, Boeing, and Redwire announced Orbital Reef, while Nanoracks and Lockheed Martin announced Starlab, all in the run up to the expected awards …

I took a half-hour ride out to the National Aerospace Training and Research (NASTAR) Center to take a tour with Glenn King, (COO, Director of Advanced Pilot & Space Training, and recent Netflix star)…

Ryan McDevitt, CEO of Benchmark Space Systems joins me to talk all about what Benchmark has been up to lately, what mobility-as-a-service means for the industry, and their partnership with Orbit Fab.

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At a town hall this week, NASA announced that the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate will be split in two: the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, led by Jim Free, …

Last week, Firefly made their first flight attempt of Alpha, and Astra launched their latest vehicle, LV0006. Though both ended in failure, it’s a good time to check in on them and other small launch…

Eric Berger of Ars Technica returns to the show to talk about the recent crewed suborbital flights by Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, Blue Origin’s Project Jarvis and their future work, and what the…

Richard Branson flew to space aboard SpaceShipTwo on Virgin Galactic’s Unity 22, and Jeff Bezos flew to space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard 16. I share my thoughts on the flights, the vehicles, an…

Marcia Smith of SpacePolicyOnline.com joins me for a round up of space policy news, including how the Biden and Nelson administrations are doing so far, things that are being overlooked or sidelined,…

I’m joined by Matt LaPointe, Technical Director at Redwire’s Deployable Space Systems, and Andrew Rush, COO of Redwire, to talk about the newest upgrade to the International Space Station: the Roll-O…

Phil Bracken, Vice President of Engineering at Spaceflight, joins me to talk about their past, current, and upcoming missions, the Sherpa program, and to dive into the technical details of it all.

Thi…

Brock Howe, the Program Manager for Nanoracks’ Bishop Airlock, joins me to talk about the final build out and launch of Bishop, its installation on ISS, some details of its operations, and its plans …