Failure To Launch Podcast

*UNLOCKED* Sunshine (2007)

We've got a new unlocked bonus episode up on the free feed! Sunshine (2007) is an overlooked-but-great movie that also made Cillian Murphy an atheist.
open.spotify.com/episode/2PJs...

Also worth mentioning that Venera probes had a lot of problems with lens caps. Venera 9 and 10 both had one of two lens caps fail to deploy. On Venera 11 and 12, every lens cap failed and neither probe could take any pictures after travelling millions of kms and landing on another planet.

Going through our collection of "images that'll cause a space engineer pain". First up: Venera-14. Soviet probe lands on Venus, jettisons its protective lens cap, lens cap lands directly under the soil sampling arm.

"Revolutionary Beards☭"

Skylab 4 - The Myth of the Space Mutiny

New episode!
We talked about Skylab-4, the third manned mission to America's first space station, and the legend of the First Mutiny in Orbit. And how they totally would have been justified to strike because living in space sucks.
open.spotify.com/episode/7H4M...

We've got a merch store! If you've ever wanted to wear some space history, now's your chance! Featuring such gems as the Engineering Ronin, Saint Yuri, and Jack Parsons Tarot.
failuretolaunch.bigcartel.com

Featuring some incredible art by friend of the show @filmfroghand.bsky.social

Stand With Minnesota Stand With Minnesota is a hub for supporting, learning, and taking action to support Minnesotans impacted by ICE and federal enforcement.

4. General Minneapolis Donations Directory. If people want to tailor their donations toward other causes, here is a directory of various charities helping out in MN and what they do. www.standwithminnesota.com

2. Lake Street Food Distro. Charity to source and provide groceries for families stuck inside for fear of ICE. account.venmo.com/u/LSFDistro

3. Save Ola and her Family. Nurse and her family in Gaza in need of aid. chuffed.org/project/1620...

Donate to Haven Watch MN – Support at the gate, care beyond it, organized by Haven Watch Haven Watch was created to help individuals released from ICE detenti… Haven Watch needs your support for Haven Watch MN – Support at the gate, care beyond it

The show has donated to all linked charities and welcomes any fan contributions as well.

1. Safe Haven MN. Charity to get people in contact with friends/family and back home safe after being released from ICE facilities. www.gofundme.com/f/safe-haven...

It's been a bit of a hectic week for us. After a fan got abducted by ICE (since released), the community came together to help. As part of that, we've been fundraising for a number of charities operating in Minneapolis and Gaza.

The Mission insignia for STS-107 is a shuttle-shaped emblem designed by crew members Laurel Clark and Kalpana Chawla, symbolizing a science-focused mission and featuring a microgravity symbol, a sunrise representing a new research era, and the constellation Columba (the dove) for peace and the orbiter Columbia. Seven stars honor the crew, with one star uniquely representing Israel's first astronaut, Ilan Ramon. The Microgravity Symbol (\(\mu g\)) is positioned centrally; the yellow \(\mu g\) symbol flows into the rays of the astronaut symbol, highlighting the primary focus of the 16-day research mission.

This is a traditional crew portrait of the seven STS-107 crew members. Seated in front, from left, are: Astronauts Rick D. Husband, mission commander; Kalpana Chawla, mission specialist; and William C. McCool, pilot. Standing, from left, are: David M. Brown, Laurel B. Clark, and Michael P. Anderson, all mission specialists; and Ilan Ramon, payload specialist, representing the Israeli Space Agency. Launched January 16, 2003, the STS-107 mission is strictly a multidiscipline microgravity and Earth science research mission involving 80-plus International experiments to be performed during 16-days, many of which will be managed by the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The first shuttle mission in 2003, the STS-107 mission marks the 113th flight overall in NASA’s Space Shuttle program and the 28th flight of the Space Shuttle Orbiter Columbia.

NASA image of the launch of STS-107 on January 16, 2003, at 10:39 AM EST

It's 9:00 AM EST on 1 February. Godspeed, the crew of Space Transportation System (STS) Flight - 107 , Space Shuttle Columbia www.nasa.gov/mission/sts-...

YouTube video by Failure to Launch Podcast Chelomey's LKS Shuttle (w. @Alexander-the-ok)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAp9...
And the podcast-with-slides version.

Chelomey's LKS Shuttle (w. Alexander The OK)

New episode!
We sat down with @alexander-the-ok.bsky.social to talk about Vladimir Chelomey's LKS shuttle project, how OKB politics worked, and how it all fell apart.
open.spotify.com/episode/2wgd...

Mad Mike Hughes, The Flat Earth Rocketman

New episode!
This time we covered the weird and dumb life of stuntman and Flat Earther* Mad Mike Hughes. His time as "the world's most famous limo driver", his turn into amateur rocketry, and his belief that he could buy you by spelling your name in all caps.

*Maybe
open.spotify.com/episode/3knH...

Having the closure of the Goddard library be announced and justified by the former owner of "𝚃𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝙲𝚘𝚘𝚕 𝙲𝚕𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙰𝚌𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚘𝚛𝚢" is just another kick in the teeth.

Archives like this are basically the space industry's equivalent of Stack Overflow: it's a place you go when you have a problem and want to see if anyone else has solved it before.
You would be amazed how many modern space projects are rooted in old open source papers written in like 1959.

One of the main reasons we know anything about the workings of the Soviet space program is because similar libraries were opened up to historians after the fall of the USSR.
Trashing all these documents will force future programs to resolve problems that were solved and written about in the 60s.

Mittelwerk: Part 6 (w. Joe Kassabian)

We have our last episode of the year out and it is the conclusion to our series on Mittelwerk. This time, we're joined by @jkass99.bsky.social in his role as a genocide historian to look at the final days at Mittelwerk and how it fit into the wider camp system.
open.spotify.com/episode/0eyq...

Men in Black 3 (2012) | Failure To Launch Get more from Failure To Launch on Patreon

Since Bart Sibrel saw fit to use a quote from Men in Black 3 (2012) for his dumb moon hoax book, we decided to give it a check ourselves for this month's bonus episode!
www.patreon.com/posts/men-in...

Everyone telling me that Trump's new battleship plans are "IRL Ace Combat superweapons" as a way to disparage them. That is frankly incorrect and slanderous.
They are clearly from Tom Clancy's HAWX (2009).

Got the years wrong: he only beat the Prince to launch by 6 years.

Definitely predicted some future space developments with the innovative use of a water launch (inspired by Sea Dragon?).

Also first attempted launch of a royal/noble, beating Prince Sultan bin Salman Al Saud to launch by an entire 12 years.

I also can't find any info on if he owned the car or if it was state-provided. This is important as Spain's first manned launch attempt could have been a purely private endeavour, a first in the 1970s.

Opposing the "Spain's First Astronaut" bit but only because of our strong, principled stance that space tourists are 𝗡𝗢𝗧 real astronauts.
Had he passed the Kármán Line, Luis Carrero Blanco would have been Spain's first Spaceflight Participant. Rank matters.

I love Reflect Orbital. I love their weird machined parts. I love the 𝓅𝒶𝓈𝓈𝒾𝑜𝓃𝒶𝓉𝑒 𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓅𝒽𝒾𝒸 𝒹𝑒𝓈𝒾𝑔𝓃 on their website. I love the "we have Znamya at home" business model.

You may be seeing some news around now about "rushing a space program to meet an arbitrary political deadline" and we want to reassure you that, historically, this has always worked splendidly across the board.

Mittelwerk, Hitler's Rocket Factory: Part 5

Part 5 of the Mittelwerk series is up. In this episode, we look at the official establishment of the Mittelbau complex and the constellation of subcamps that sprung up around it.
open.spotify.com/episode/7HWI...