Hey readers. After a bit of a break, I’m back at it again, this time with a little news on the space exploration front, a fave of mine. It seems that at the end of this month, China is lofting a Long March rocket with a Mars explorer on board. This is a first for their space program, and I wish them luck.

Any human endeavors in space are a good thing, as far as I can tell, with the exception of weapons lofted above. Why we have to drag our earthly squabbles into the heavens I don’t know, but I suppose it’s inevitable.

Despite the pandemic and it’s sidekick, the recession, things continue for SpaceX. They have recently asked permission from the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) to communicate with a launch vehicle at high altitude. This is an indication that Mr. Musk’s company wants to fly Starship this year.

As usual, SpaceX is going at a breakneck pace, and failures are part of the creative process for them; they are noted for spectacular explosions. But that’s OK. It really does seem that Mask’s team learns from each mini-disaster, and they are not risk-averse or punished for failure. Also, they seem to really want to get to Mars, unlike the military-industrial complex types that Musk competes against.

So yeah, there’s that. It gives you something to look forward to, and I wish SpaceX well.

In other news, engaged in the usual summer lull around here, where you try to get out and do things. We are fortunate that we can actually do that this year, that we don’t live in a city surrounded by restrictions and masses of people. 2020 has been tough. But there’s tough, and then there’s tough.

We could have been stuck in a high-rise apartment.

That would have been bad. As it is, we have a little land, a quiet road and a sleepy town.

And here pretty soon, we’ll have decent internet, too. I totally volunteered for SpaceX’s Starlink internet service. My current rural provider is a big, fat joke. Expensive, too! So when Starlink comes online it’ll be a huge upgrade.

Internet service? Totally essential this year. I don’t know what we would have done in the lockdown without it. It’s really hard to believe that the very first, dial-up modem internet service to this house was about 22 or 23 years ago.

These days? Hell, my cheap Samsung runs rings around the mainframe computers of the nineteen-eighties. And they ran communications for an entire continent. I can’t begin to imagine the capabilities of our most powerful computers now.

What drives me? The thought of what it will be like in a decade, or two, if I am fortunate enough to be around to see it.

The Chinese may be headed to Mars. OK, that’s fine.

I want to see SpaceX there, too.