Roundup of thoughts

 Who thinks of the SonicFinder for Macintosh OS 7 every time their phone or computer chimes?  William Gaver was prescient and showed us the future! What's he showing us now?  https://researchgate.net/profile/William-Gaver/publication/213799409_The_SonicFinder_An_Interface_that_Uses_Auditory_Icons/links/00b4951837b639e443000000/The-SonicFinder-An-Interface-that-Uses-Auditory-Icons.pdf?origin=publication_detail #futurist

Read FastCompany - Why every founder's first hire should be a product marketer The first sentence is the key point: "As an early stage tech founder, you have one goal: Show product-market fit (PMF) as fast as possible. That’s it." Exactly right! Without PMF, every dollar you spend on development, marketing, and sales is wasted. And everyone's time is wasted. Why? Because until you can prove PMF, you don't know what sells . . .you are trusting your gut . . .and the odds are that you are wrong. Which is why you need to hire and listen to a Product Marketer: "As a seed-stage founder, you need to surround yourself with leaders unafraid to question everything. PMMs are no exception. They’re highly critical people by nature; they see the bigger picture and question assumptions. Because product marketers can readily distinguish a viable reality from a lofty aspiration, they’re not “yes people.” And your startup is better for it." Read the full article here: ht...

Here's a #wenhop update for #HLV #Ariane6 from @sciguyspace@twtr.plus "However, the inaugural flight is now scheduled for 2024." Eric Berger @SciGuySpace wrote: More confirmation that the hot fire test of the Ariane 6 rocket will (inexplicably) not be streamed live. From ESA's new FAQ source PDF here that Berger provided: https://download.esa.int/esoc/downloads/Ariane_6_test_campaign-questions_and_answers.pdf

Here's a #wenhop update for @boeingspace #Starliner launching on an #ULAAtlasV Boeing delayed the flight from ~summer 2023 to N.E.T. March 2024 @sciguyspace Eric Berger @SciGuySpace writes: Boeing's Mark Nappi says they envision Starliner being ready for a crewed launch in March 2024; but still need to work with ULA on Atlas availability and NASA on the ISS visiting vehicle schedule. So NET March, and quite possibly later.

1/ With the 212th landing of a #Falcon9 booster during the @hughesconnects #FalconHeavy Jupiter 3 mission, @SpaceX has reused or saved nearly 1,894 #MerlinEngine rocket engines (some were swapped out) Read about the SpaceX Merlin engine here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Merlin 2/ That’s astonishing and encouraging for the long imagined #spacefaring #multiplanet future of humanity. Image courtesy of SpaceX - spacex.com at the Wayback Machine (archived 2006-02-14)

1/ Here’s an update to my roundup of @amazon ‘s gigantic tranche of 94 launch contracts for its #ProjectKuiper satellite constellation  2/ As of June 2023, no satellites are in orbit and Amazon has just 37 months to launch 1/2 the constellation under its spectrum license  3/ The first two are scheduled to fly on the ULAVulcan debut launch delayed until Q4 2023  4/ Here's an updated graphic showing the number of months remaining   5/ Only @SpaceX has launched a comparable number of satellites with TBD #starlink in LEO  6/ It took @SpaceX 24 months & TBD launches to surpass 1600 in orbit   You will find more infographics at Statista  7/ Prior to lofting the #StarLink constellation, #Falcon9 had completed a total of TBD launches including #TBD in preceeding 12 months  8/ As of this writing, the only launch vehicle in the #Amazon fleet to reach orbit is the #ULAAtlasV  9/ None of the new heavy launch vehicles #HLV is yet flying - #ULAVu...

Last August, I wrote a "Roundup of Planned #HLV here Now I am reading with interest this analysis of Ariane 6 by Eric Berger https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/04/europes-ariane-6-rocket-is-turning-into-a-space-policy-disaster/ I will summarize soon! A key nugget reads, "As of this writing [18 April 2023], the public date for the debut launch of Ariane 6 remains "late 2023," but the rocket's first flight will certainly slip into 2024. And its development budget has nearly doubled, to $4.4 billion." And Eric finishes writing, "For Europe, the optics of this are terrible . . . [and] officials from the continent are going to have to negotiate with SpaceX for a ride to space for some of their most precious satellites—never mind that the cost is likely to be lower and that the Falcon 9 is the most reliable rocket in the world, with the lowest insurance costs. It's a bitter pill to swallow."