Up, up and Away

It won’t be long until commercial space launches become more frequent than some people leaving the house.

The Federal Aviation Administration released a new report with launch statistics, and AL.com’s John R. Roby reports that, in 2024, space launches hit an all-time high. Which you may have expected. But you might not be aware of these numbers: There were 142 operations throughout the year by seven companies. Most launches are for satellite deployments.

The agency believes that the U.S. could be sending up more than a launch a day by the year 2034.

As goes the space industry, so goes North Alabama, the home of manufacturing and integration operations for United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin, which both sent payloads into orbit just last month.

Of those 142 launches in 2024, 118 were performed by SpaceX. Blue Origin had three launches and ULA had two.

Restarting repair work

Birmingham’s water board voted to restart work on the leaky Lake Purdy Dam, just a few days after stopping it, reports AL.com’s Joseph D. Bryant.

The decision to forge ahead came in response to some pretty blunt risk assessment. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers classified it as high hazard based on the danger of a breach.

Last week, Arcadia engineer Patrick Flannelly told the board that a dam failure would affect thousands of home and possibly kill people.

The first phase of the project will cost $28 million. Indeed, the cost issue is what led to pausing the project.

Alabama’s got talent

The Birmingham Youth & Young Adult Fellowship Choir became one of 10 acts to receive a Golden Buzzer on “America’s Got Talent,” reports AL.com’s Patrick Darrington.

That means the act impressed one judge so much that it passes right into the live round without being facing all the judges.

The choir received the Golden Buzzer from judge Simon Cowell.

The group formed in 2015. It knocked out Cowell with a rendition of “Joyful, Joyful Lord We Adore Thee” infused with some hip hop.

A lot of toilet paper

Former NFL quarterback Eli Manning was in Auburn on Tuesday for an event billed as the setting of a new Guinness World Record, according to the Auburn Plainsman and other news outlets.

Whether or not it passes the Guinness folks to be a legitimate record, reports indicate that a crowd of hundreds tossed thousands of rolls of toilet paper into the tree limbs.

The Montgomery Advertiser reports that professor Keith S. Hébert presented Manning with a plaque from Gov. Kay Ivey. He announced that a record number of 7,125 rolls of TP were chucked into two trees and that it was a world record.

The reason behind staging such a rolling of Toomer’s Corner? Manning was featuring the Auburn tradition for his ESPN show, “Eli’s Places.”

Quoting

“The Texas floods were caused by natural weather dynamics—not human interference or weather modification efforts. It was not caused by Democrats or Republicans.”

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