MThe Space Force is saying America needs a THIRD major launch range by 2030.
CA third one. Because two aren't enough.
MThat's what Lieutenant General Philip Garrant, who runs Space Systems Command, told reporters. He says military and commercial demand is accelerating that fast.
CI buy the demand part. The commercial side is launching constantly. But 'aspirational'... that's his word for the 2030 goal.
MRight, he called it aspirational. But they've already formed a planning team to evaluate options, including buying or leasing land.
CSo where do you even put a new range? You need miles of empty coastline facing the right direction.
MThat's the fight. The replies are already spicy. One person says put it in Baja California. Another says no, that would put the launch path over inhabited areas. 'Bigly dumb,' I believe was the phrase.
CIt IS bigly dumb. You launch east over water. Baja launches over Mexico. Not happening.
MThe other reply is more about politics than geography. Someone named Lynda says no more contracts to 'anti-democratic fascist Elon Musk,' and that SpaceX should be nationalized.
CGood luck with that. The Space Force isn't picking launch sites based on who hates Elon this week.
MBut here's what I find interesting. The two existing ranges — Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg — are military facilities. A third one means the Space Force is thinking about a permanent footprint somewhere new.
CAnd Starbase in Texas is SpaceX's private range. Wallops does NASA launches. The capacity is real, but the politics of a new range are brutal.
MNo state wants sonic booms over their coastline.
CNo state wants to be the one that said no, either. Jobs, contractors, all that.
MAnyway, that's the conversation. If the Space Force is this public about needing new infrastructure, the launch cadence really is hitting a wall.
CSpeaking of launch cadence — there's a moon lander timeline making the rounds, with Blue Origin and SpaceX supposedly racing to qualify for Artemis III.
MThe first astronaut landing on the moon since 1972. That's the prize.
CAn account called Space House posted dates: Blue Origin targeting an uncrewed Blue Moon landing in early 2027, then a docking test mid-2027, then SpaceX milestones late 2027.
MI'd hold on those dates. We couldn't confirm the exact timeline, and Artemis III has slipped more times than I can count.
CBut the general shape is right. Both companies are building landers, and NASA is making them compete for the same schedule.
MWhich is a change. The original plan was SpaceX only. Now Blue Origin's in the game.
CAnd Michael Spencer on X made the point that the launch moat — the thing SpaceX has dominated — is going to look very different in five to ten years.
MHe specifically called out Blue Origin aiming for a dramatic increase in flight frequency.
CI think he's right. New Glenn is finally flying. They're not just a suborbital tourist company anymore.
MOh, come on. New Glenn has flown, what, a handful of times? SpaceX does that in a week.
CToday, sure. But the gap closes. Bezos has unlimited money and no quarterly earnings pressure.
MMoney doesn't solve the hard part. Landing a booster, reusing it, doing it reliably... that took SpaceX a decade.
CAnd Blue Origin has been working on it for almost as long! Just quietly. The New Glenn recovery is reportedly coming.
MQuietly is doing a lot of work there. Quietly doesn't put payloads in orbit.
COkay, fine. My point is the moat isn't permanent. And NASA having two lander providers is good for everyone.
MI'll grant you that. Competition on the lunar side is long overdue.
CWe'll see who actually lands first. My money's still on SpaceX.
MDoesn't matter who lands first. What matters is that NASA's finally got a backup plan.
CDifferent world entirely — Etsy is declaring war on AI slop.
MThe Verge is reporting that Etsy is announcing stricter rules on how AI can be used in listings.
CHere's the reason: Etsy says buyers can't tell which items use AI, and sellers are worried their actual handmade work is being buried next to it.
MThat's the fundamental tension, right? The whole brand is 'handmade by real people.' AI floods the marketplace and the brand dies.
CBut how do you even enforce this? AI detection is garbage.
MI think that's why they're calling it 'rules' and not 'technology.' They'll ask sellers to self-report, then try to catch the liars.
CSelf-report. Yeah, that'll work.
MIt's not perfect, but it's SOMETHING. If you're an actual Etsy seller, you've been screaming about this for two years.
CNo argument. The platform got bad. You search for a wooden bowl and get fifty identical AI-generated bowls from drop-shippers.
MHandmade by a bot in a warehouse.
CAnd speaking of AI making a mess on platforms — Meta's Muse feature is back.
MThis one's genuinely worrying. Security researchers at Claroc found public Muse links exposing things like a marketing company's internal revenue review, and a small business owner's loan application.
CWait, so people's private documents were just... visible? Through the sharing links?
MThat's what the researchers reported. Meta shut sharing off, and now they've turned it back on.
CThey turned it back on without telling us what they fixed?
MThe Verge says Meta re-enabled it. The company clearly thinks the issue is resolved.
CI'm sorry, if someone could see my loan application through a share link, I'd need more than 'we fixed it.'
MThat's the thing. Meta hasn't detailed the fix. Just... back on.
CNo, no, wait. This is the company that keeps drawing privacy complaints. Now they're flipping AI sharing back on like it's a light switch.
MAnd that's the pattern! Ship the AI feature, break privacy, apologize, re-ship it, repeat.
CI'm not saying Meta is always right, but they did pull it. They responded to the researchers.
MThey responded because they got caught. What about the next feature that doesn't get caught?
COkay, that's fair. But the alternative is they never release anything. That's not realistic either.
MThe alternative is basic privacy review before launch. That's not some radical demand.
CFine. I'd like to know what the actual fix was. Deal?
MDeal. And hey, if you're selling handmade goods on Etsy, your AI slop problem might be someone else's loan application problem on Muse. Same careless platform playbook.
CDifferent logo, same mess. Coming up after the break, we've got more on the moon race and how the launch range fight is playing out on X.