November 09, 2025
SURPRISE AMAZON FIREWORKS!
In about 30 minutes, ( 2pm EST/ 6pm UTC) Brickmuppet Channel will be covering the launch of ESCAPADE, the latest US Mars mission, which will launch from Cape Canaveral today at around 2:45pm EST./ 6:45pm UTC. Not only is this only the second launch of Jeff Bezos' New Glenn rocket, but they will try to land the booster on a ship at sea! This maximizes the potential for explosive mishaps!
So join us in chat as we cheer for the progress of humanity and the um...Rocketry of the overlords of Twitch....as we react to whatever happens and cheer for (or at) team Twitch! (yay) ALSO POSSIBLE 'SPLODIES! The channel is at https://www.twitch.tv/brickmuppet
Update: I've had streams ruined by all sorts of things. mostly P.E.B.K.A.C. on my part but I've NEVER had one tanked by cumulus clouds until today.
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October 13, 2025
ROCKET!!!!
THIS IS IT!!! (again) Space X is launching its 11 starship and will be running it through the ringer to test its survivability. THIS MIGHT MEAN FIREWORKS! If not it will be interesting! Join us in 15 minutes! 7pm EDT/ 11pm UTC) for the wonder and the snark! https://www.twitch.tv/brickmuppet
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September 18, 2025
A Request Response
I cannot provide Mauser the experience of throwing a ball in a centrifugal habitat, but the Kalpana one habitat design has multiple ballfields...so...imagine I guess?
Animation by Brian Versteeg
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August 24, 2025
SUNDAY! SPLODIES!
Tonight at 6:50 EST / 10:50 UTC We will be observing applied methane and oxygen chemistry in action! We'll watch Space-X make yet another attempt to get their reusable spacecraft ( STARSHIP ) into space without it performing an unplanned auto-disassembly.
Unplanned auto-disassemblies are always fun to watch! However, if the thing actually stays together this time then we'll be watching HISTORY. So, stop by https://www.twitch.tv/brickmuppet . Say "Hi!", grab some popcorn, and join us in chat as we watch the fireworks!
Stay around after the fireworks! We'll discuss the launch, space settlement and other geekery while watching me derp in Zenless Zone Zero!
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March 03, 2025
I'm out of the Hospital and GOING TO SPAAAAACE! (Virtually)
Join us on the Twitch Channel at 6pm EST 11pm UTC* for a stream that we will begin with fireworks as we tune into the 8th launch of the Starship space transportation system. This rocket, improved and enlarged after the fiery pyrotechnic fun of the last attempt is the largest rocket ever made and, IF successful, will bring a true space age to humanity in the next few years. Grab a drink and a snack and join the conversation in chat as we watch the launch. Find out in real time if this launch results in engineering history or it results again in ***SPLODIES***!
* Yeah I've changed the time! this is the current estimate as the launch looks to be 30 min after stream start.
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December 29, 2021
It Begins
Elon Musk, the ad-Astra Afrikans-American who has, in the last few years, revolutionized access to space, seems to have dropped one too many red pills.
Devon Delvechio recently did the above video on Musk's changing perspective in the eyes of the hip set but today came a rather pointed rebuke of the man by...the FAA and EPA.
It seems that the FAA has delayed their approval of Musks new spaceship launch until at least March pending an environmental review. Note that the whole point of the rocket is to get completely out of the environment.
Musk has, in the last few years gone from the darling of the Ted-Talk left to something of an annoyance at best. His recent Twitter-feud with Senator Warren and his appearance on the Babylon Bee of all places seems to have cemented his transition in their eyes.
Musk was, for many years, an enthusiastic repeater of leftie platitudes as he took govt. subsidies for electric and solar endeavors during the Obama years. It was this lack of offensiveness from the lefts point of view that likely enabled his much more consequential rocketry project to proceed unnoticed and unmolested.
I suspect that the environmental review delay is a sort of shot across the bow, telling the billionaire to "get back in line". These people, especially those in the Biden Administration, are vindictive enough that they'll strangle a new industry in the crib just to spite Musk.
Worse, it's quite possible that Musks space projects are themselves a primary target. Starlink itself bypasses many donors to the DNC, Solar power satellites could be a big step in curbing emissions...without paying the grifters that fly private jets to conferences to lecture poor people on their carbon footprint.
Musk is an impressive genius but his brilliance is partly a result of his autism, which ill prepares him for the kind of Byzantine emotional maneuvering that is necessary when dealing with our ruling class. Whether this change in opinion of him by the powers that be is something he can survive is something I'll be watching with not a little apprehension.
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October 13, 2021
WARP SPEED!
UPDATE: They made it back. William Shatner, at 90, is now the oldest person to have gone to space. His post-flight talk is worth watching.
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September 18, 2021
Some Good News!
Space-X's INSPIRATION-4 capsule, the first crewed, private, wholly civilian space mission to go into orbit, returned safely this evening.
The fate of of the Soyuz11 crew demands that we not be satisfied with merely observing the splashdown though....
So yeah, good news!
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May 05, 2021
Will There Be 'Splodies?
There may not even be a burn. As this is being typed there appears to be an issue and Space-X trucks have arrived at the launch-pad and disgorged technicians, while the rockets flaps are being tested.
However, the FAA mandated launch window extends until 8PM Houston time. For now the commentators are discussing the relative merits of cooking bacon in the oven.
UPDATE:
One of The Brickmuppet's Crack Team of Explodemologists has an update as of 17:37.
"They're pumping in fuel! The countdown has restarted!
Fireworks are likely!
UPDATE 2:
It looks like they did it! no explosions are in evidence and a small fire on the pad has been extinguished. It appears this was completely successful.
A superb celebration of the 60th anniversary of Alan Shephard's 1961 flight.
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April 27, 2021
Meanwhile: In Space
Something is eating and/or yeeting nearby stars.
According to a new analysis of Gaia satellite data, the closest star cluster to our Solar System is currently being torn apart - disrupted not just by normal processes, but also by the gravitational pull of something massive we can't see.
The Hayades Star cluster
consists of a roughly spherical group of hundreds of stars sharing the same age, place of origin, chemical characteristics, and motion through space
This young stellar nursery is the closest star cluster to Earth, being only 47 parsecs (153 LY) away. For our purposes that's ridiculously, arbitrarily far, but on the galactic scale we're practically touching.
Anyway, data from ESA's Gaia satellite indicates that stars in the cluster are vanishing and or being thrown out of the formation. The paper is here, and more layman friendly articles on the subject can be found here, here, here and here.
The current theory as reported, is that a huge mass of dark matter, (which is invisible to telescopes) is passing through the cluster and disrupting it. As a few of the articles suggest, finding Dark Matter, would indeed be strong evidence for Dark Matter, though, like all other evidence for the stuff this is indirect evidence (as Dark Matter's supposed properties would dictate).
Allow those of us at Brickmuppet Blog to offer an alternative possible explanation, but not necessarily the only one, for the phenomena being examined.
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March 05, 2021
A Trend I've Noticed
Scott Lowther links to a particularly silly hit piece on Elon Musk over at the Atlantic.
It ends with this line:
To laugh at Sagan’s words is to miss the point entirely: There really is only one true home for us—and we’re already here.
Lowther does a good job dismembering Shannon Stirone's twaddle, finally using this for an epic finishing move...
There was only one true home for us… the Olduvai Gorge. Until it wasn’t.
Yep. That's a 'fatality', and that should put to bed this particular nonsense.
Alas.
This seems to be a big "thing" in academia right now, and has been percolating since Musk began looking like he might actually pull it off. The arguments I've seen have ranged from environmental concern trolling like this. Safety concern trolling like this and others (to my surprise including Kim Stanley Robinson) and the idea put out by Daniel Deudney and Phil Torres that allowing people off earth is itself an existential threat as people living off planet will develop with different priorities, become different cultures and there will therefore be no alternative to war. (I wish I was being silly, but that is their argument).
I'm not a big fan of terraforming for other reasons (I'm in the Gerard O'Neal/Dandridge Cole camp) but Musk and Zubrin make a good case that the benefits of the tenuous atmosphere and myriad other resources make Mars a very attractive place to do one's crawling, standing and baby steps as humanity gets out of its cradle.
I'm pretty sure that is why there is now such a visceral reaction to this amongst upper class academe and those who the idea of the cosmos being sullied by the great unwashed plebians.
Providence has provided those who would micromanage our lives, via vacuum and hard radiation, a natural barrier to prevent people escaping their attentions that's far more effective than the Berlin Wall. They do not want an alternative or counterexample to the homogenized, post-discontent society they envision. The U.S. Australia, Canada, and a few others provided such safety valves in times past. To have a similar escape route unexpectedly open, just as these can taste their triumph over the human spirit must be rather disheartening.
So, while I think the more rational course is to move on from Mars to space habitats like the Stanford Torus, or O'Neil's Cylinders I do find myself willing to consider an exception to my skepticism against terraforming in the particular case of Mars. It's technically doable. (Hell, people have worked out the math on terraforming the MOON) It would be quite the scenic vacation spot and would represent a middle finger to the culture of the Handicapper General by the Culture of Excellence and Striving for Greatness and Arete. Baring the existence on Sol4 of something more advanced than a Volvox, it would harm nothing of consequence while creating vast benefits and stand as a profound testimony to the potential of Humanity and a meaningful inspiration to the children of future generations.
I'll take the future of Olaf Stapeldon over that of H.G. Wells any day of the week. Those of the opposite opinion need neither suffer nor trouble themselves about us. They can sit in repose, lords of their cradle, smugly secure in the knowledge that we deplorable fools could not possibly have survived our folly.
And perhaps many of those who go won't. It is quite true that this is an objectively wild-eyed and potentially tragic endeavor. Space is cold, (when it's not evaporatingly hot), dark, radioactive and has, to be frank, rather poor toilet facilities and ventilation. It is not for the faint of heart or the stupid or the incompetent. It's gonna be a frontier where you have to make you own fricking air. It will take years to make it safe and generations to make it comfortable and pleasant. But it will be something of real, lasting value, and that is worth risking a lot for.
It is, as they say, the truly great ones who plant trees for their descendants that they will never walk in the shade of.
There is nothing WRONG with not wanting to go into deprivation for a noble dream. In fact it's sensible. However, while I don't begrudge anyone who doesn't want to go, I'm alarmed at the surprising putch of articles demanding that this endeavor NOT BE ALLOWED.
I really fear that these people in academe and positions of societal power will do everything they can to stop this from happening, using every tool in their legislative and cultural quivers. This is a real issue and needs to be addressed.
Don't block the safety exit.
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February 27, 2021
Robots on Mars
A very detailed and informative press conference doing an almost frame-by-frame analysis of the landing of the Perseverance Rover on Mars. For those that just want to watch the landing, the raw footage of the landing begins at 1:47:44.
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February 18, 2021
Perseverance Lands
NASA's newest rover Perseverance has successfully landed in Jezero Crater ( which was once a lake) on Mars. There were no splodies, just pictures.
"No 'splodies no crunchies! Yay!"
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January 29, 2021
Space X
Well, there are a lot of conflicting stories as to what happened with the FAA and the SN-9 test flight scheduled for yesterday.
However, as I type this they are rolling out SN-10 to the launch pad.
Reportedly, SN-9 is scheduled for a Monday launch, but SN-10 is scheduled for "soon".
We'll see.
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January 13, 2021
Oh Wow. They're Going to Test This Thing Next Month
They've been best known until now for cool CGI animations of stuff they say they'll do eventually, but now The Gateway Foundation is announcing plans to do a 40% scale test of their fabrication robot 'D-Star'.
If this thing works, even the 40% version will have massive potential to assemble things in orbit and beyond. If Space-X gets their rockets working and produced in the quantities that Mr. Musk is promising, then we could have the solar system from Mercury to Pallas opened up in less than a decade.
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December 08, 2020
Splodies Imminent !
Will they be controlled splodies or chaotic 'splodies? It's Space-X...so it'll be fun either way.
UPDATE: Well.....It was scrubbed.
UPDATE2 12/9: Well THAT was spectacular.
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November 25, 2020
Meanwhile, in Texas
Space-X just conducted what is believed to be its last static fire test on the main engines of its SN-8 Starship prototype. As is expected of anything Space-X, the result was a series of explosions.
Our crack team of Science Babes have thoughts on the implications of these explosions on the rocket.
"Yeah. That's actually how rockets work. In this test the explosions were all in the right places and pointed in the right direction! That's a, uh, success."
Oh.
Well, that explains why this rocket, the prototype for a fleet expected to number in the hundreds and intended to travel to the moon, asteroids, as well as bring settlers to Mars, is still scheduled to conduct a test flight to an altitude of 9 miles next week.
Note: 'Science Babes' are actually Yukari, Matsuri, and Akane...the Rocket Girls.
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November 15, 2020
Wo0t!
Space-X has launched a NASA mission with an international crew consisting of NASA and JAXA astronauts to the International Space Station. The mission commander, Colonel Michael Hopkins USAF, will be transferred and sworn in to the U.S. Spaceforce during this mission, and so this mission marks the first spaceflight of a Spaceforce servicemember. Hopkins has two spaceflights under his belt. Mission specialist Shannon Walker has done a previous tour to the ISS, Victor Glover is on his first spaceflight, but is an experienced test pilot and The Japanese astronaut, Soichi Noguchi, is one of 7 current (11 total) Japanese astronauts, has been an astronaut since JAXA was still NASDA, and has ridden fire twice.
I dunno what the odd pulsing of the second stage engine pumps was, but it's now been 15 minutes, the capsule is in orbit, the first stage was recovered, and all 'splodies have been confined to the interiors of the engine nozzles.
Happy day!
UPDATE: Final crew note; the zero gravity indicator on this mission appears to be Baby Yoda.
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October 22, 2020
We came in Peace...AND WE PUNCHED IT!
NASA has successfully slammed the Osiris-REX space probe into the Earth Crossing asteroid Bennu, knocking debris into space that will hopefully be collected and returned. Our Crack Team of Science Babes have some thoughts on the matter.
"We hit it!"
The probe will collect sample of the debris that it kicked up. If it has room and weight reserves for more it will punch the asteroid and blow on it again with the aim of collecting more. Assuming it survives its various assaults on the asteroid, it will return its samples to Earth in 2023.
"The probe will no doubt land in Piedmont Arizona and..."
Hush.
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Oh My. Yes!
U.S. Space Force recruiting commercials.
Watch this one on Bitchute
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