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Super Heavy is grinding toward completion. Some of the delay has been due to a rocket motor redesign. Production rates and testing capacity are also nowhere near 'industrial' quantities needed with 33 motors required on the back of every booster, times however many dozens are wanted in the...

Well, SLS *is* the bigger rocket. It's the Space Shuttle, with two extra engines, and the flying brick on the side removed. SLS doesn't buck the modern trend of two stages plus the odd SRB. Staging may have some benefits, but it comes with costs to consider beyond the launch pad. Add a stage...

A shoutout to NERVA! - NASA's space-capable rocket powered entirely by nuclear energy. Ready to fly in 1969, but cancelled in 1973. Fundamentally it was a "steam" rocket -- the business end uses the thermal power of the nuclear reactor to flash a liquid into exhaust gas. The reactor design was...

FAA Commercial Space Transportation Wings are issued to *flight crew* passing 50 mi altitude, so FAA will give Virgin SS2 *pilots* wings. Branson probably could have sat up front if he wanted, but the pilots don't get zero-G float time, so... choices, choices. Bezos made a decision to...

This is all sophistry after SpaceX missions reached *orbit*, but... in the realm of the suborbital, it just depends on which altitude metric you prefer. 100 km is arbitrary but generally above the atmosphere's mesopause, even during daytime. The FAI, which keeps flight sports records...

bluShift Aerospace launched a test rocket to the modest height of 1200m. It's a very early place for any company with orbital dreams to be. But it does prove their homebrew fuel works. https://www.space.com/blushift-aerospace-launches-stardust-biofuel-rocket