CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: SpaceX is gearing up for its third astronaut launch in under a year, after getting the green light from NASA a week ahead of next Thursday’s planned flight.
Managers from NASA and Elon Musk’s space company Thursday cleared the Falcon rocket and Dragon capsule for a dawn liftoff with a crew of four to the International Space Station. They will spend six months at the orbiting lab, replacing another SpaceX crew that’s close to coming home.
This will be the first crew flight using a recycled Falcon and Dragon. Both were designed for reuse.
The rocket was used to launch the current station crew last November from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The capsule, dubbed Endeavour, also will be making a repeat performance; it carried two test pilots to the space station on SpaceX’s first crew flight last spring.
SpaceX refurbished both and added safety upgrades. Most of the capsule is already “flight proven,” company officials noted, except for some new valves, thermal protection covers and parachutes.
Kathy Lueders, head of NASA’s human exploration office, said it was “moving” to be on the verge of flying three SpaceX crew flights in 11 months.
“Looking back, it’s really, really amazing what both the SpaceX and NASA teams have accomplished,” she said.
SpaceX said it must resolve one issue before conducting a test firing at the launch pad this weekend. It appears the company has been loading more liquid oxygen into its first-stage boosters than anticipated, and engineers want to make “extra certain” that poses no safety risks, said Bill Gerstenmaier, a new SpaceX vice president who used to work for NASA.
Three of the astronauts are back for their second space station mission: NASA’s Shane Kimbrough, France’s Thomas Pesquet and Japan’s Akihiko Hoshide. NASA astronaut Megan McArthur was part of the final Hubble Space Telescope repair team in 2009.
For nearly a decade, the only route to the space station for astronauts was on Russian rockets. NASA turned to private companies for taxi service after the space shuttles retired in 2011. SpaceX has been shipping cargo to the space station since 2012, using the same kind of rocket and similar capsules, and recycling those parts as well.
SpaceX, NASA give ‘go’ for astronaut launch, 3rd for Dragon
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SpaceX, NASA give ‘go’ for astronaut launch, 3rd for Dragon
- SpaceX has been shipping cargo to the space station since 2012, using the same kind of rocket and similar capsules, and recycling those parts as well
Some Warren Buffett wisdom on his last day leading Berkshire Hathaway
OMAHA, Nebraska: The advice that legendary investor Warren Buffett offered on investing and life over the years helped earn him legions of followers who eagerly read his annual letters and filled an arena in Omaha every year to listen to him at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meetings.
Buffett’s last day as CEO is Wednesday after six decades of building up the Berkshire conglomerate. He’ll remain chairman, but Greg Abel will take over leadership.
Here’s a collection of some of Buffett’s most famous quotes from over the years:
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“Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”
That’s how Buffett summed up his investing approach of buying out-of-favor stocks and companies when they were selling for less than he estimated they were worth.
He also urged investors to stick with industries they understand that fall within their “circle of competence” and offered this classic maxim: “Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget Rule No. 1.”
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“After they first obey all rules, I then want employees to ask themselves whether they are willing to have any contemplated act appear the next day on the front page of their local paper to be read by their spouses, children and friends with the reporting done by an informed and critical reporter.
“If they follow this test, they need not fear my other message to them: Lose money for the firm and I will be understanding; lose a shred of reputation for the firm and I will be ruthless.”
That’s the ethical standard Buffett explained to a Congressional committee in 1991 that he would apply as he cleaned up the Wall Street investment firm Salomon Brothers. He has reiterated the newspaper test many times since over the years.
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“You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.”
Many companies might do well when times are good and the economy is growing, but Buffett told investors that a crisis always reveals whether businesses are making sound decisions.
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“Who you associate with is just enormously important. Don’t expect that you’ll make every decision right on that. But you are going to have your life progress in the general direction of the people you work with, that you admire, that become your friends.”
Buffett always told young people that they should try to hang out with people who they feel are better than them because that will help improve their lives. He said that’s especially true when choosing a spouse, which might be the most important decision in life.
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“Our unwavering conclusion: never bet against America.”
Buffett has always remained steadfast in his belief in the American capitalist system. He wrote in 2021 that “there has been no incubator for unleashing human potential like America. Despite some severe interruptions, our country’s economic progress has been breathtaking.”
