Eric Lasker

@somefoundersalt @sdamico The critique is fair, though if more true commercial markets existed for space applications then the default would not be defense but commercial. Companies move to or start with defense space because it’s actually an established and growing market (and worth doing of course).

@sdamico Many companies unfortunately wind up on the latter route, particularly in space when the requirements can get extremely specific from prime to prime or agency to agency

One highly contrarian belief that I now strongly hold is that a overfitting of space companies to defense requirements to the detriment of commercial demand is holding back a lot of progress in the space industry, and it’s good to see others recognizing that as well Defense customers have red tape and esoteric requirements that commercial customers often don’t have, and their mere existence will considerably drive up unit costs and also have an upward effect on the pricing for commercial customers However once you’re in, you can’t exactly pivot out of defense without sacrificing a massive anchor customer that likely took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to win Meanwhile companies who CAN win commercial like SpaceX (who now generates multiple times more revenue from Starlink than all of their USG contracts combined) eat your lunch with far shorter sales cycles and having the freedom to define their own requirements

@_Faraz @DJSnM Real ones know

@laskerer @DJSnM The og plan to make 0g zblan

Two optical fibers made of the same ZBLAN glass, but one was made in zero g.

@artem_zin @DJSnM That’s actually exactly how fiber is made on earth today — tall draw towers. Zblan is particularly low viscosity and prone to nucleation so you unfortunately really do need true microgravity to suppress the internal turbulence enough to make lower than silica attenuation fiber

@laskerer @DJSnM How long is the cure process when sped up? How about achieving 0g on Earth in a long vertical vacuum tube and curing fiber while it free falls?

@andrewmccalip @heskelbalas @jarrodxmartian Slippery slope and no free lunch; building new launch pads and obtaining launch permits for dramatically increased launch cadence is not free (see: reuters.com/sustainability…)

@heskelbalas @jarrodxmartian Will implement that tonight.

Data centers in space. It might not be economically rational. But it might be physically possible. I’m trying to bring some quantitative structure to a conversation that’s been mostly big-number vibes. andrewmccalip.com/space-datacent…

@PettitFrontier Had this made at Varda recently…

@ryanzip Generally agree though also seems increasingly possible for humanity to make von Neumann probes. So while biologic light cone intersection is likely rare it would at least seem possible/likely for post biologic life to intersect if a civ can survive to that point.

fermi hottake: - simple life is everywhere - intelligence pops in/out as fleeting bubbles - those bubbles are relativistically isolated: light-cones rarely intersect

An actually important company during these grifting times 👏👏

@mattparlmer Vibes

That looks like LEO, which begs the question, how does this thing handle drag?

@Truthful_ast @mattparlmer Reaction Engines throwback 🥹

Approaching Spacebase

@dkirtley Going to crush the dreams (and business cases) of many space entrepreneurs with this

He-3 is scarce on Earth. Some propose mining the Moon. Maybe let’s skip the commute.

@andrewmccalip @LepsThomas When can I bid on my ad on live stream around the Solomon Islands?

Couldn't have done it without @LepsThomas. Perfect launch day.

Project Bob has launched!!! Dashboard.projectbob.xyz

@andrewmccalip I mean ya; you’re just correct. Feel very lucky to have seen both up close

It’s actually insane when you stop and think about the supply chain complexity of a hamburger. You’ve got beef that has to be raised, butchered, transported, refrigerated, ground, and portioned. Lettuce that wilts if you look at it wrong, tomatoes that have a two-day window of acceptability, onions that vary wildly in sharpness, buns that go stale in hours, cheese that has to melt but not burn, condiments that have to be stocked in absurd variety. Every single ingredient has a shelf life, a specific temperature band, a transport requirement. The combinatorial explosion of possible configurations is astronomical, yet somehow a drive-thru teenager can assemble one for you in under 90 seconds, and an Uber drive can deliver it in 10 minutes. Add in consumer fickleness (“extra pickles but no mustard, gluten-free bun, substitute this, hold that”), razor-thin margins, brutal competition, marketing gimmicks, and the fact that most customers think anything above $15 is highway robbery. And you’re telling me this logistical miracle doesn’t cost $5,000 per unit? It should be treated with the same awe we reserve for spaceflight. @laskerer

@pdhsu I’ve watched far too many of his restaurant reviews…ie chef wang calling restaurants mid and stingy

by the way, if you don't know this auteur, let me put you on @chefwang" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">youtube.com/@chefwang

crazy hail mary into the ether but is there someone like Chef Wang on Youtube who does cooking classes in the Bay area?

@Matt_Schulman1 I’d like to nominate Matt Yalowitz as your king

Stripe has a slack channel called #matts for people named Matt. Whenever a new Matt joins the company, all the old Matts welcome the new Matt

@zebulgar The transition from shit poster to insta influencer is now complete. We all grow up I guess 🥲

some photos from nyc earlier this week

@fikocian No need to call out small sat when you could insert ~any space conference and still be accurate

Happy "we never flew a product in space but here is seven people we are flying across the world for SmallSat Utah for >business development<" season to those who celebrate

@TGMetsFan98 Sir, get out of my head x.com/laskerer/statu…

As astronomy capabilities get better and better, we might continue discovering more interstellar objects zipping through our solar system. It would be so awesome to have a probe built and ready, just waiting for a target object to be discovered and a trajectory designed!

@GregWAutry Increasingly feels like there should be a program to just have a probe ready to go for the next one — TacRS for NASA

Interesting neofixer.arizona.edu/css-orbit-view…

@andrewmccalip That hand looks familiar…

here we go