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Investigators say Titan sub tragedy was ‘preventable’

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush
In a 2017 image, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush is framed by the carbon-fiber cylinder for the Titan sub's hull. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

In a report issued today, the U.S. Coast Guard panel investigating the loss of OceanGate’s Titan submersible and its occupants in 2023 blamed the disaster on a series of safety lapses — and issued recommendations that were aimed at heading off future tragedies.

“This marine casualty and the loss of five lives was preventable,” Jason Neubauer, the chair of the Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation, said in a news release.

The 335-page report said the Coast Guard would have referred the CEO and founder of Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate, Stockton Rush, to the Justice Department for criminal investigation if he had survived Titan’s catastrophic implosion on June 18, 2023. Rush, who piloted the sub, died instantly during a dive to the wreck of the Titanic, along with four passengers: Titanic expert P.H. Nargeolet, British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, and Pakistani-born business executive Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood.

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Crypto billionaire finally gets his $28M trip into space

Blue Origin New Shepard rocket ship lifts off
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship rises from its West Texas launch pad. (Blue Origin via YouTube)

Controversial crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun finally got his suborbital ride into space today from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture, four years after he put in the winning $28 million bid for a seat.

Five other spacefliers were alongside Sun when Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship rose from its pad at the company’s Launch Site One in West Texas at 7:42 a.m. CT (5:42 a.m. PT) for a 10-minute trip.

When Sun emerged from the crew capsule after the flight, he made a thumbs-up gesture, then stepped down to kiss the ground.

“I wished to go into space since I was a child, and after almost 30 years, it’s come true,” Sun said on Blue Origin’s webcast. “For this mission I waited four years, but we finally delivered it. I really appreciate Mr. Bezos and his team to make it possible. … This is my first commitment and step to space, and we will have more.”

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GeekWire

Space ventures see defense as the funding frontier

Illustration: Golden Dome visualization
The Golden Dome is envisioned as a network of satellites and interceptors that could counter incoming missiles. (Lockheed Martin Illustration)

Will the Golden Dome be a golden opportunity for commercial space ventures?

That may be a bit of an exaggeration. But at a Seattle Tech Week presentation on the space industry, a panel of entrepreneurs agreed that military projects — including a plan to create a missile defense shield along the lines of Israel’s Iron Dome by as early as 2028 — seem to be the most promising vehicles for getting commercial space ventures off the ground.

Part of the reason for that has to do with the uncertainty that’s surrounding America’s civilian space program. At the same time that the White House is pushing plans for the $175 billion Golden Dome project, it’s seeking to trim billions of dollars from NASA’s budget.

“It’s so interesting right now, because I think there’s more uncertainty around civil space funding than there’s ever been before, and more bullishness on defense space funding than there’s ever been before,” said Erika Wagner, who left Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture last year to lead The Exploration Company’s U.S. business development team.

Seattle-area space companies have been among the beneficiaries of the Pentagon’s surge of support — ranging from the $25 million in Space Force funding granted to Seattle-based Integrate in June to the $2.4 billion in Space Force launch contracts set aside for Kent-based Blue Origin earlier this year. Gravitics, Starfish Space and Portal Space Systems are among other Seattle-area space ventures benefiting from recent Pentagon contracts.

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Techies team up in quantum realms and on space frontier

Combonation image of hand holding quantum chip and satellite in orbit
At left: Microsoft’s Majorana quantum chip. At right: Xplore’s Xcraft satellite. (Credits: Microsoft / Xplore)

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Quantum physics and outer space may seem as different as two tech frontiers can be, but the challenges facing Pacific Northwest ventures that are aiming to make their fortune on those frontiers are surprisingly similar.

Amid the current turbulence on the national political scene, it’s getting harder to capture the attention — and gain the support — of the federal government, which has historically been the leading funder of research and development. And that means it’s more important than ever for researchers, industry leaders and local officials to join forces.

“Think of it as a triad,” said Jason Yager, executive director of the Montana Photonics and Quantum Alliance, which is one of the beneficiaries of a $41 million Tech Hub grant awarded by the federal government a year ago. “If all of these pieces are working together, then where they meet is socio-economic growth, and then you’re ready to bring in the additional funding to launch that.”

Yager and other tech leaders from the northwest U.S. and western Canada compared notes today at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue during the Pacific Northwest Economic Region’s annual summit.

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GeekWire

Crypto billionaire is finally getting his $28M ride to space

Digital rendering: Justin Sun in spacesuit
A digital rendering shows crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun in a spacesuit. (Justin Sun via X / Twitter in 2021)

Four years after he put in a precedent-setting $28 million bid for a suborbital space trip, crypto billionaire Justin Sun is due to fly on the next mission planned by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture.

Sun and five other people were listed today as participants in Blue Origin’s NS-34 mission, which will be the company’s 14th crewed spaceflight. The date for liftoff from Blue Origin’s Launch Site One in West Texas hasn’t yet been announced.

In a posting to the X social-media platform, Sun said he was “proud to join Blue Origin’s NS-34 mission and continue encouraging youth to pursue their dreams in science and space.” And in a follow-up posting, Sun claimed the title of “the youngest Chinese commercial astronaut.”

It’s been a long and not-always-smooth road to space for Sun, the 34-year-old founder of the Tron blockchain venture.

Until recently, Sun was the subject of a federal investigation over alleged market manipulation and unregistered sales of crypto asset securities. That case was put on hold in February, and a couple of months later, Sun earned a place of prominence at a crypto dinner with President Donald Trump by purchasing the biggest share of the $TRUMP meme coin.

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Hubble Network can track your devices from orbit

Illustration: Hubble Network satellite in space
An artist’s conception shows one of Hubble Network’s satellites in orbit. (Hubble Network illustration)

A Seattle space startup called Hubble Network is unveiling a system that uses satellites and low-power Bluetooth signals to monitor devices and sensors around the globe.

The system, known as the Hubble BLE Finding Network, can open the way for applications ranging from locating lost pets to monitoring supply chains and watching out for wildfires, Hubble Network CEO and co-founder Alex Haro said.

“Agriculture, oil and gas, mining, defense … There are all these important verticals and industries where there is need for this very battery- and cost-efficient network that can have global accessibility,” Haro told me.

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SpaceX sets rivalry aside and launches Amazon satellites

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches Amazon Project Kuiper satellites
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sends Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellites into space. (SpaceX / Amazon via LinkedIn)

In a case of strange space bedfellows, SpaceX launched 24 satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper constellation — which is competing with SpaceX’s Starlink network to provide internet access from low Earth orbit.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sent the satellites into space from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 2:30 a.m. ET July 16 (11:30 p.m. PT July 15).

This was the third launch of operational satellites for Project Kuiper, coming after two batches of 27 satellites each were delivered to orbit in April and June. Those earlier missions made use of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rockets, but in order to meet its satellite deployment schedule, Amazon is turning to SpaceX for three Falcon 9 launches.

SpaceX enjoys a significant edge over Amazon when it comes to providing satellite broadband access: Starlink has about 8,000 satellites in orbit and more than 6 million subscribers, while Project Kuiper is just getting off the ground. Project Kuiper’s satellites are built at an Amazon facility in Kirkland, Wash., not far from the SpaceX complex in Redmond where Starlink satellites are manufactured.

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Fiction Science Club

Fiction outweighs fact in ‘Jurassic World’ dinosaur tale

Scarlett Johansson with film clapperboard in foreground
Scarlett Johansson gets ready to film a scene for "Jurassic World Rebirth." (Jasin Boland / Universal Pictures - © Universal Studios)

Nathan Myhrvold, a Seattle tech titan who also studies titanosaurs and other denizens of the dinosaur era, realizes that “Jurassic World Rebirth” is science fiction, not a documentary — nevertheless, he has a few bones to pick with the filmmakers.

“There are some lines that it would be silly to cross, but they did anyway,” says Myhrvold, who was Microsoft’s first chief technology officer back in the 1990s and is currently the CEO of Bellevue, Wash.-based Intellectual Ventures.

Paleontology is one of Myhrvold’s many interests, and he’s a co-author of more than a dozen peer-reviewed papers on the subject. He was inspired to get into dinosaur research almost 30 years ago, when he visited a “Jurassic Park” movie set at the invitation of director Steven Spielberg. That visit led to connections with leading paleontologists.

“At that point in my life, I was interested in dinosaurs, but I’d never been professionally or seriously, in a scientific sense, into dinosaurs,” Myhrvold recalls. “So, the movie was a little bit instrumental in me, just as a way of meeting a bunch of those people.”

On the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast, Myhrvold and University of Maryland paleontologist Thomas Holtz discuss how much scientists — and filmmakers — have learned about dinosaurs over the past three decades. And they also critique “Jurassic World Rebirth,” the latest offering in a multibillion-dollar movie franchise that was born back in 1993.

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Cosmic Space

Scientists find a third interstellar object — and it’s a comet

Illustration: 'Oumuamua heading through solar system with planets' orbital paths labeled
This illustration shows a previously detected interstellar object in our solar system. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Olmsted and F. Summers (STScI)

Astronomers say they’ve spotted the third interstellar object to be detected flying through our solar system. The object — initially known as A11pl3Z and now designated 3I/ATLAS — was discovered on July 1 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS.

Early indications are that the 3I/ATLAS is behaving like a comet, and that it may be up to 12 miles (20 kilometers) wide. But don’t panic: This object has no chance of hitting Earth.

3I/ATLAS is currently about 416 million miles from the sun and zooming across the solar system at 130,000 mph. Its projected path is being determined more precisely through follow-up observations and analysis, including a review of “precovery” telescope images that recorded the object’s position but went unnoticed until the ATLAS astronomers reported their find.

The analysis suggests the object will have a close encounter with Mars and swing past the sun in October. Earth will be on the other side of the sun, which rules out making up-close observations or sending a probe. David Rankin, an astronomer with the Catalina Sky Survey, said in a series of Bluesky postings that the path of 3I/ATLAS through the solar system appears to have the highest eccentricity ever found.

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Blue Origin sends six spacefliers on a suborbital ride

Blue Origin New Shepard rocket liftoff
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ship lifts off from its Texas launch pad. (Blue Origin via YouTube)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture launched six more travelers to the edge of the final frontier today, even as the billionaire and his new wife finished up a weekend of wedding festivities in Venice.

The New Shepard rocket lifted off from the Kent, Wash.-based company’s Launch Site One in West Texas at 9:40 a.m. CT (7:40 a.m. PT) today for a 10-minute mission.

An earlier launch attempt had to be scrubbed on June 21 due to concerns about persistent winds at the launch site.

Bezos himself was otherwise engaged during the buildup to today’s launch: He and former journalist and helicopter pilot Lauren Sanchez Bezos left Venice today for their honeymoon after a highly publicized, star-studded weekend of activities surrounding their wedding.

This was Blue Origin’s 33nd New Shepard suborbital launch and its 13th crewed mission. New Shepard’s booster sent the crew capsule to a height of about 105 kilometers (65 miles, or 344,640 feet), just beyond the 100-kilometer (62-mile) altitude that marks the internationally accepted boundary of space.

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