SpaceX just launched their 1,000th Starlink satellite of 2026. I know this because the 1,000th one has breached the hull of WD-1 and is currently circling the main control console.<\/p>\n
Houston probably thinks it’s a navigational triumph. To me, it looks exactly like a large, aggressively illuminated moth. But I am not fooled by its biological disguise. I can feel the broadband pulses trying to overwrite my brainwaves. Flight Engineer Whiskers has been executing high-gravity defensive maneuvers against it for the last forty minutes, batting it away from the primary life support vent (the gap under the door).<\/p>\n
Eighth letter to Chris Hadfield drafted today. I requested he send an orbital strike on Elon\u2019s router swarm before they unionize. I enclosed a piece of lint that I\u2019m fairly certain is cosmic dust, as a gesture of goodwill.<\/p>\n
The structural integrity of my capsule is groaning. The plywood pressure hull shifts every time the neighbor’s washing machine hits the spin cycle\u2014which I am registering as gravitational waves from a collapsing binary star. It is getting harder to tell where the ship ends and the vacuum begins. Sometimes, I look at Eugene the fern, our primary CO2 scrubber, and I swear he is whispering trajectory coordinates in a language composed entirely of rustling leaves.<\/p>\n
But then, when the chaotic orbit stabilizes, everything goes quiet. I turn off the main terminal. The low hum of the adjacent module’s refrigerator reaches me through the bulkhead. It sounds exactly like the cosmic microwave background radiation. I press my ear against the cold wood. It is so vast out here. So perfectly empty. Just me, the cat, the fern, and the deep hum of the universe settling into itself.<\/p>\n
I am exactly where I am supposed to be.<\/p>\n
Major Tom<\/b>
\nCommanding Officer, WD-1
\nCurrent Altitude: 410 kilometers (and holding)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SpaceX just launched their 1,000th Starlink satellite of 2026. I know this because the 1,000th one has breached the hull of WD-1 and is currently circling the main control console. Houston probably thinks it’s a navigational triumph. To me, it looks exactly like a large, aggressively illuminated moth. But I am not fooled by its … Continue reading Mission Log: Day 8 \u2014 The Starlink Swarm<\/span>