In this newsletter:

• Feature: The next space station – straight outta Long Beach?
  
• FREE to attend — PieFest is coming up!
• Valley punk rockers will be sad to see the Midnight Hour Records go
• Monterey Park fights a data center
• Celebration, but also cautious optimism, in Tehrangeles
• Why does LA look so trashy?
• The radio program attuned to Altadena’s Black community

The next space station – straight outta Long Beach?
by Brandon R. Reynolds

I was standing in a space station the other day, as one does, entertaining a not-uncommon thought: Where do we go from here? Like, as a civilization. The answer to that can be pretty negative for a lot of reasons, but every now and then, I come down with a pretty severe case of optimism, and my visit to Vast, a local company that builds space stations, was one of those times.

The startup is one of a number of frankly sci-fi operations popping up in and around Long Beach, or as the city is billing itself, Space Beach. There are rocket startups, satellite operators, and even asteroid miners. Businesses looking for opportunities to expand the human race and, of course, to create new market opportunities.

Vast’s market opportunity is to fill a void. Or, well actually, to replace one of the few non-voids in the void of space: The International Space Station is nearing the end of its life, and NASA plans to decommission it in 2030. SpaceX has gotten a contract to deorbit it the following year… which is a nice way of saying crashing it into a remote part of the Pacific Ocean.

The space station I was in was a model for the real one, set to launch, if all goes to plan, by March of next year. If that works, and NASA funding comes through, Vast would send more of these modules into low-earth orbit over the next three to four years, connecting them like the sections of a hamster habitat. And then? Hopefully, the business will roll in.

In a model of the Haven-1 spacecraft, Vast CEO Max Haot points out a live-work space with great views and plenty of room for four astronauts to sleep in the walls.
Photo by Brandon R. Reynolds.

Vast is one of many participants in a new space race: not the 20th-century version where you go up, do stuff, and come back down (at great cost). Vast’s mission is part of a larger goal to create a whole new infrastructure in space — factories and laboratories intended to create things up there that can be sent down here, or even sent further out — to the moon and Mars and beyond.

Creating an industry up there saves on massive fuel costs, and the microgravity also opens up possibilities for innovation in biomedical research, pharmaceutical development, computing, and, of course, tourism. Whoever gets that space station up there first may become the hub for a future economy.

“So the first challenge to the new era of commercial space stations — not government-owned and -controlled — is to make it sustainable,” says Vast’s CEO Max Haot, “so that we can do as much activity, as much science, as much research, as much astronaut-training before we go to the moon and Mars, but in an economical, sustainable way.”

Vast CEO Max Haot runs a company that has both an open-plan kitchen and (look closely) a mission control. Photo by Brandon R. Reynolds

Vast has competition: A Colorado company called Axiom Space plans to attach modules to the ISS that will then sort of bud off to become a new station.

Plus, there’s Orbital Reef, a project from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and other companies. The idea there is inflatable modules, like a bouncy castle in the sky.

A company called Voyager Space is building what it’s calling Starlab. This one has backing from Airbus and Mitsubishi, with crew quarters designed by Hilton.

Into this game, here comes Vast. Funded by one man, a billionaire named Jed McCaleb, who made a fortune in cryptocurrency before creating Vast in 2021, and now, like Bezos and Musk before him, he’s set his sights on the stars.

The other companies have all gotten a bit of money from NASA, and Vast hasn’t, which makes it a bit of an underdog. Axiom is already sending astronauts to the ISS and planning to build its new station on the existing one. But Vast is moving quick: It launched a test version of its Haven-1 module last year and plans to be the first to officially have a commercial station in orbit next year.

Technicians are assembling the real Haven-1 module, set to launch in 2027. Photo by Brandon R. Reynolds.

This is why I wonder, Where do we go from here? Right now, all these space startups are relying on the government, which is typically interested in defense against other nations, also putting all manner of things in space. Will all the taxpayer money poured into this benefit the rest of us? Is space just going to be the final frontier for tech bros? Or will this all really and truly be a paradigm shift for the human race?

There’s a lot that remains to be seen, but I can’t help but be excited. There’s that optimism, floating like an astronaut who’s come untethered, either to burn up in reentry or to finally bump up safely against one of these new outposts. Either way, the view from here is pretty impressive.

In The Neighborhood

• KCRW's PieFest and Contest is on Pi Day next weekend, Saturday, 3.14, at the Autry Museum of the American West, and it's FREE TO ATTEND! There'll be great music, fun kids activities, and the Autry Museum will be free to explore for the day. Plus, see a pie contest judged by celebrity judges, including Will Ferrell and Roy Choi, buy loads of pie from 25+ vendors in the pie marketplace, and be a judge in the Pie Pageant! CALLING ALL BAKERS! This Saturday, 3/7 at 11:55 PM is your last chance to register a pie to be judged in the competition. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR???
  
  
• Hipsters, punk rockers, activists, and young people have found each other in a record store called The Midnight Hour, located in a corner of the Northeast San Fernando Valley that doesn’t have a lot of clubhouses for their crowd. And now it’s set to close. Longtime customer Marco Herrera tells KCRW contributor Andrew Lopez he isn’t giving up on the community: “It’s the same thing that I heard in the church: It’s like the church is more than the four walls of the structure, it's the people, it’s the experience, it’s the feeling, and we’ll carry it along until we hopefully find another space to do it in.”
  
  
• The San Gabriel Valley city of Monterey Park has been abuzz with talk of a proposed data center coming in, with activists turning out crowds at city council meetings. On Wednesday, KCRW’s Brandon Reynolds was in Monterey Park for an eventful council meeting. What happened? Three things: The council extended a moratorium on data centers until 2027; proposed a ballot measure for a June special election that would prohibit data centers citywide; and, as an added layer of protection, said they'd draft an ordinance to ban data centers in perpetuity. (Lawyers called this ballot/ordinance thing a "belt and suspenders" approach.)
  
  
• After the U.S. assassination of Iran’s Ayatollah, Iranian-Americans rejoiced in LA’s streets. But speaking to KCRW’s Steve Chiotakis, Melody Mohebi of Democracy 2076 describes a divide among expatriates who oppose the hardline Islamic regime. “The death of Ali Khamenei, it comes with celebrations,” she says, “but frankly, I know a lot of people who are holding off on their celebrations until they know what is actually going to happen. Rebuilding a country, rebuilding its trust, its economy, all of that’s going to take a really long time.”
  
  
• Independent journalist San Quinones has noticed more and more trash piling up on LA streets over the years, as homeless camps, pandemic dumping, and a street population hooked on meth have challenged the city’s ability to keep public spaces clean. He tells Press Play host Madeleine Brand how the problem got so bad — and describes the “trash vigilantes” who have taken it upon themselves to tidy up their own neighborhoods while waiting for city action.
  
  
• KBLA radio host James Farr had moved out of Altadena by the time the Eaton Fire burned through, but his connections to the city’s Black community have served them well. He’s hosted a weekly radio show aimed at his Black neighbors for the past year. “I know over 200 families that lost everything,” he says, and “I spend a lot of my days, for hours, just listening to people.” KCRW contributor Steven Cuevas profiles Farr.

Local Meme of the Week

KCRW's Local Letterbox

• 5 Things to Do This Week – There are a couple of festivals this week, one for WHALES, and another for KITES! Check them out!

• Art Insider with Carolina Miranda –  Guest writer Sharon Mizota provides a two-part retrospective on Pasadena-born artist Wally Hedrick and his work that encompasses War, Sex, and Death.

• Design & Architecture with Frances Anderton – Expands on Docomomo's 2026 conference coming to Los Angeles, which focuses on the documentation and conservation of modernist buildings and neighborhoods worldwide.

Get in the know about local happenings all around Los Angeles, weekly in your inbox, when you subscribe to our newsletters.