The $1.5T figure is not tied to any particular defense need or DoD request, but rest assured the Pentagon will gladly soak it up if they can manage it.

DND investing 200 million in a sovereign space launch capability for Canada

Sort of what happens when you undermine allied states’ core interests and destroy their trust in you, and then make no diplomatic effort to bring allies along in an offensive military campaign whose predictable 2nd/3rd order effects undermine thoae core interests further.

Unpopular opinion: the US and China should team up to return Martian rock samples and pave the way for future space cooperation. Wolf Amendment be damned.

MQ-9 Reapers are flying numerous orbits over Iran, gathering intelligence and taking out missile launchers in Operation Epic Fury. Yet Iran has managed to down about 10 of the armed drones, according to people familiar with the operations. www.airandspaceforces.com/mq-9s-over-i...

It’s no secret that investigative journalism is on life support. The economics of the profession, always shaky, have become increasingly untenable. If you enjoyed this, or any of my other work, and are looking for a full-time editor or writer, get in touch! www.politico.com/news/magazin...

So senseless, so arrogant

there's a thing I like to call "load-bearing assumptions", that you don't notice until they're suddenly gone (e.g the air you breath has oxygen in it). the post-ww2 order is a load-bearing assumption for basically the entirety of american life. trump took a sledgehammer to it in the last 90 days.

Of course they will be rubber-stamped. This happens often enough with real people planning strikes. Between AI planning and autonomous execution I expect higher rates of civilian casualties in conflict worldwide.

Commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence Rear Adm Mike Brookes testified today that the PLA Navy is moving from a hybrid diesel-nuclear submarine force to an all-nuclear submarine force. Notable. www.uscc.gov/sites/defaul...

The only repeated strategic goal for Op Epic Fury articulated by the admin is that “Iran can never have a nuke.” That’s a prevention goal. Which requires either your opponent’s will to somehow change Or an endless commitment of resources. Against ideological opponents, this = forever war

Friendly fire happens in any major conflict, but three F-15Es? I am not confident that Iran has even gotten three aircraft off any runway, much less to perform a meaningful attack. There will be an interesting postmortem for this one.

the guy who wrote the literal book on this stuff is dunking on the admin:

US now targeting 2028 for its own landing, but that's an optimistic goal

US destroyers launched Tomahawks at Iranian targets, but here’s the problem: America doesn’t have unlimited TLAMs. The Trump admin burned through big numbers in earlier strikes on Iran, Houthis, and Nigeria without replenishing stockpiles. And TLAMs would be vital in a potential China fight.

Sustained aerial bombing could achieve two, maybe three of these things if the US and Israel are skilled and lucky: destroying ballistic missile launchers and industry, sinking the Iranian navy, and maaaaybe set the Iran's supposed nuke program back further.

Among many other challenges for the Iranian opposition (see previous thread) there is no opposition leader who commands wide legitimacy and experience in either governance or fighting a civil war. Many people have focused on Reza Pahlavi, the Shah’s son, as a possible opposition leader. But . ..

What are the long-term implications of cancelling SLS's Exploration Upper Stage? Does that take crewed Mars flights off the table until some hypothetical future vehicle is developed? Not denouncing the move, just wondering.

NASA's Isaacman, per arstechnica.com/staff/2026/0... announces: Boeing EUS stage cancelled, SLS to continue using Block I (Delta 4 derived) upper stage, new Earth-orbiting mission added to schedule in 2027 as 'Artemis 3' with an Apollo-9-type profle, old Art3 is now Art4, in (implausibly) 2028

NEW: Guards have taken away crayons, colored pencils & paper during recent room searches at Dilley, according to detainees and others. After one inspection, the children just “cried and cried and cried,” a mother said. The facility denies the claims. By @mckenziefunk.com @micarosenberg.bsky.social

The Trump administration is loosening restrictions on the sharing of law enforcement information with the CIA and other intelligence agencies, officials said, overriding controls that have been in place for decades to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens www.propublica.org/article/trum...

Space Reporter job for Payload is open! drive.google.com/file/d/1fPjw...

Scramjet tests are always fun

“Iran’s nuclear facilities have been obliterated - and suggestions otherwise are fake news.” - White House, June 25, 2025 www.whitehouse.gov/articles/202...

Two+ tier airport security always kinda rubbed me the wrong way anyway.

Finally a proper audience!

NATO Allies have agreed a new multinational initiative to develop drone-based deep precision strike capabilities, as part of a wider package of cooperative programmes aimed at strengthening deterrence and defence, the alliance stated. ukdefencejournal.org.uk/?p=66937

U.S. Navy Seeking Anti-Radiation Missile Which Can Also Kill Airborne Radars NAVAIR is looking for an advanced anti-radiation missile with a longer range than the ones in the Navy’s current inventory and which can also engage airborne targets. Story: theaviationist.com/2026/02/20/u...

adventures in our brave new world

20 years of GWOT has left a sense that uncontested air power is how wars work. But it's not war. These are all launchers. It's bombardment for bombardment's sake. We're getting ready to bomb the hell out of a country, but there's no war plan, no real goals.

ProPublica published children's letters and drawings documenting their sadness and suffering at Dilley. And Dilley staff are now retaliating by confiscating kids' letters and drawings. www.sacurrent.com/news/san-ant...

This is really, really weird. TFRs are imposed for all kinds of reasons, including VIP travel or military exercise, but a no-notice one that cancels flights is unheard of (9/11 attacks aside)

At some point the aerospace industry should have a conversation about company names; they tend to be aggressively uninteresting given their awesome roles. Next minor gripe: the surplus of rockets named for defunct Western deities.

Hey space people, another request. I'm looking for experts to talk to this week about in-space manufacturing for a feature I'm writing. If that's you, or you have people you'd recommend, do let me know. Thanks! jdaoca[at]gmail[dot]com

15 years ago I borrowed a bulletproof vest from a reporter so I could report from a war zone. I held onto it after I returned. Last week the reporter finally asked for it back because he is headed to Minneapolis.

Attn: Editors

Put another way, American Airlines will have better headways to ORD tomorrow than the CTA Blue Line.

The Air Force is rushing the refit and certification of Qatar’s opulent gifted 747-8i jet so that Trump can start using it as Air Force One as soon as this summer, a year after he accepted the lavish gift. And to meet Trump’s arbitrary deadline, critical security upgrades will be kept to a minimum.

Newly unsealed evidence makes it even clearer that Rubio and Noem knew they were targeting students based solely on their political speech and that they knew this policy was unconstitutional. They just didn’t care. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/u...

E-7 Wedgetail Radar Jet The Pentagon Tried To Cancel Gets Over $1B In New Defense Bill www.twz.com/air/e-7-wedg...

JFC...

Good news - I'm hiring at Durham University! 1-year full time postdoc in Space Security - looking for someone to join me at the Space Research Centre and a Northeast England based space tracking/analytics company to work on geopolitical analysis in Space Domain Awareness. Details 👇👇👇

It's hard to even explain what a disaster this is for the US economy in the short-term — as well as US innovation and industry in decades to come. Immigrants and foreign students at our universities are—as always have been—the wellspring of American invention and innovation.

Looking up foreign holdings of US treasuries and this is the top of the US Treasury's website. It's all so embarrassing.

We now have a full-blown European-American crisis, and for no reason that the president is able to articulate

Macron now refers to "intimidation or threat", explicitly comparing US behaviour in Greenland to Russia's approach to Ukraine. Sweden's PM says: "We will not allow ourselves to be blackmailed". Much, tougher language from Europeans than we have seen before, responding to the US escalation.

And so concludes another week w/ no routine news briefing at the Pentagon. The last on-camera briefing was held for the "new" right-wing press corps more than a month ago, on Dec. 2. The press space has been mostly vacant since the traditional press corps departed in October.

It’s been reported locally, but I’m not sure how much national notice this has gotten. As part of this invasion by shithead goons, they are putting ICE agents in jetbridges and other parts of the airport at Minneapolis-Saint Paul. If you are flying Delta via MSP, you are putting yourself at risk.