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There are thousands of satellites orbiting above Earth. But it’s not always easy getting them up there.

During a Monday night mission in Great Britain, a Virgin Orbit rocket experienced an anomaly while traveling 11k+ mph, and never reached its final orbit. The satellites it carried burned up on reentry, according to The New York Times.

The failure spoiled the United Kingdom’s first attempted satellite launch and led to Virgin Orbit’s stock dropping 14% yesterday.

What was lost?

Nine satellites, whose owners paid $10m-$12m each for a spot — and are reportedly insured. Among them:

• Belgian company RHEA Group, which lost a satellite meant to be tested as a backup for GPS navigation systems.
• AAC Clyde Space, a Scottish company, which lost a cubesat made to track illegal maritime activities.

Founded by Richard Branson, Virgin Orbit has previously completed four successful satellite launches out of the Mojave Desert in California, which is a helluva lot less damp and windy than Britain.

Branson’s mission success rate with Virgin Orbit and space tourism company Virgin Galactic has been above 90%, per the Daily Mail, but it lags fellow space-obsessed billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, as well as NASA.

But not all was lost

The mission helped lay the groundwork for technical and regulatory advancements in Britain’s space industry. Britain has now spent $24m equipping an airport in Cornwall, England, for satellite launches and plans to launch in Scotland.

“We have shown the UK is capable of launching into orbit,” Matt Archer, the UK Space Agency’s director of commercial spaceflight, noted.

Big picture: Deutsche Bank valued the global launch market at ~$8B in 2022, and projects it will reach $35B by 2030.

The world had never seen anything like the Ganz sisters’ restaurant.

Identical twins Lisa and Debbie staffed their eatery, Twins Restaurant, with 30+ pairs of identical twins who wore matching outfits and sported name tags that read something like “I’m not Lisa” or “I’m not Debbie.” If one twin got sick, the other had to stay home, too.

Buoyed by the restaurant’s viral reception, Lisa and Debbie had planned to open locations across the country. But as they worked long restaurant hours, emptying grease traps at 2am, they discovered a more intriguing opportunity: twin expertise.

For any business project or media opportunity that involved twins, triplets, or “multiples,” the Ganz twins would be the consultants, the authors, or the ones to find them. They excelled at it. They monopolized it. And they’ve been doing it for decades now.

Lisa and Debbie Ganz have chased a world record by putting 150+ identical twins on tandem bikes. They have found twins to play roles in “Law & Order” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” They have published a twin-related book.

“We basically [turned] how we were born into our business model,” Lisa says.

Most of us probably don’t think too hard about bowling pins; we just try to knock ‘em down. But it turns out they don’t all fall quite the same.

Alleys have been switching to a new automated system using “string pins,” per The Wall Street Journal.

How it works

Nylon strings attached to the pins’ tops pull them up into a rack after a shot, then replace those the player missed. (You can see a video here.)

This system is simpler and less expensive than the free-fall machines alleys used to use, and repairs are cheaper and faster. It’s also cheaper than hiring human pinsetters, a nearly obsolete practice.

Owners say that due to pandemic setbacks, increased operating costs, and a dip in bowling’s popularity, cost-cutting has become necessary.

But there’s a catch

While the International Bowling Federation says string pins are fine in tournament play, the US Bowling Congress (USBC) claims a study of 86k+ shots found string pins result in ~7% fewer strikes and more frequent splits.

The USBC proposed some kind of standardization for pinsetters in its report, which may appeal to the pros and purists.

Most casual bowlers, however, won’t notice a huge difference in between slices of greasy pizza and pitchers of beer — though one player did tell the WSJ they don’t make the same sound.