Episode 305: Moon, Dear

Spaceflight news— HLS downselection - Starship chosen (PDF: nasa.gov) (twitter.com/jeff_foust) — HLS Base Period Source Selection occurred last year. (PDF: beta.sam.gov) — Berger/Davenport were assumed to be wrong by some. (twitter.com/lavie154) — NASA internally apologized for the leak. (twitter.com/joroulette) — The US Senate wasn’t happy this selection occurred before a new Administrator could be confirmed. (twitter.com/wapodavenport) — Dynetics was planning on using on-orbit propellant transfer, not just bolting on tanks. (HT Ben Hallert: spacenews.com) (HT Ben Hallert: spectrum.ieee.org) — Subsequent acquisitions are expected, so don’t count anyone out just yet. (spacepolicyonline.com)Short & Sweet— Pam Melroy nominated as Deputy Administrator (twitter.com/Astro_Pam) (nasa.gov)— NASA’s InSight to hibernate for the winter (thehill.com)— New Shepard flies again (nasaspaceflight.com)This week in SF history— 4 Apr, 1997. STS-83 had to be aborted on-orbit due to a fuel cell anomaly (science.ksc.nasa.gov) (astronautix.com) — Droplet Combustion Experiment (DCE) managed to return data before the abort. (princeton.edu) — STS-83 was reflown as STS-94, the next available consecutive number on July 1st 1997 (en.wikipedia.org) — After some digging, Mike Stewart suggests the fuel cell problem was never identified (HT Mike: scribd.com) (HT Mike: cbsnews.com)— Next week (4/27 - 5/3)  in 1999. If a spacecraft takes data but can’t transmit it back to Earth, does it make a science?