A tour of the solar system, and history, from Homer Hickam.
Category Archives: Space Science
The Martian
An interesting interview with Andy Weir.
The initial windstorm (or, rather, its effects) did seem a little implausible to me, but otherwise (as noted) the book holds up very well, scientifically.
The Faux Issue About Ted Cruz And NASA
A good analysis from Hank Campbell, with a little history for those ignorant in the space-science community.
I love cute robots on Mars and pretty pictures from Hubble but keep in mind that politicians and their staffers see beyond that. They know we could have cute robots and pretty pictures while spending a whole lot less money – and we wouldn’t lose a single NASA employee. Though advocates claim we will “lose leadership” in some area or another if we don’t spend more money than some other country, that argument does not work with politicians, who see how badly money can be misused – when it is the pet projects of their political opponents, anyway.
I don’t care what Ted Cruz thinks about global warming, pollution is bad whether he thinks so or not, and Senator and now President Obama said he thought vaccines might be causing autism, but did anyone in science not vote for him in 2008 because of that? If you about care climate science, don’t worry about NASA, worry about the new chair of the environment committee, Senator Jim Inhofe, who denies climate science outright.
If you do care about space science, Cruz is a good choice. Just like Cruz’s opinion on climate change, that science media happens not to like Republicans is irrelevant to how well someone will do at NASA. He’s likely to be better for space science than the people we have had under Democrats, including the space advocate (and space-farer) Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, who insisted that extending the life of the glorified space-going UPS trucks known as the Shuttle Program was somehow necessary for science – a porkbarrel agenda that would have starved out actual space science programs – and did nothing at all about President Obama canceling Constellation in his home state. Nelson has to be careful criticizing the President ‘or the Republicans win’ but Cruz is not handcuffed by common party registration. If he has presidential ambitions, helping NASA will help him in Florida and some common sense about funding will be welcome to the public and a lot of NASA employees and scientists who can’t criticize the President. As I have discussed about the James Webb Space Telescope and its eternal cost overruns, every time a high-profile NASA project hemorrhages money, it’s the less-publicized but more scientifically valuable projects that bleed.
NASA needs someone who is not going to sign off on projects hoping they will become too big to fail. It’s better for the public and it’s better for science, because all those experiments that only need a few million dollars can then get it, rather than being told to wait for next year because an old program no one is excited about is delayed and over budget once again.
Unfortunately, he’s bought (or at least seems to have bought) into the SLS BS. But he’s a smart guy, so he may be educable.
New Exoplanets From Kepler
…are the most earth-like yet.
Sounds like all we need is a warp drive now.
A Gravity Lab
A concept for doing it on the cheap.
One problem I see in the near term is that NASA plans to use Dragons as lifeboats, so I’m not sure when one would become available on orbit.
[Update a while later]
Actually, I think that a cargo Dragon meets the requirements for this much better than a crew Dragon. It’s an on-orbit mission only, so there’s no need for couches, which just take up room. It can’t be used for a lifeboat, because it has no docking adaptor (at least currently), so NASA wouldn’t miss it. Even a Dragon V2 would need an ECLSS upgrade, so might as well just put it in the cargo version. It would have a lot less value to NASA than a V2, so it would be easier to get it from them. All they’d be giving up is the cargo return (which they could even get when the mission was over, months later, if they wanted).
Orion And SLS
Thoughts on the fiscal challenges, from the Director of the GAO.
If you plan a planetary science mission on assumption that you'll use SLS, you're making a very risky bet.
— Rand Simberg (@Simberg_Space) December 22, 2014
Neil Tyson
…seems to be auditioning for the Pierce Brosnan character in Mars Attacks.
Shouting To The Galaxy
Should earth shut the hell up?
Orion’s Mission
Paul Spudis deflates a lot of the hype about this week’s flight. The notion that this is a significant part of a Mars architecture is, and always has been, ludicrous.
[Update a while later]
Sorry, I’ve solved the problem of the missing link.
[Update a few minutes later]
More from Joel Achenbach:
You don’t need an advanced degree from MIT to grasp that this is a very stately, deliberate program, one free of the sin of haste and the vice of urgency.
Has there ever been a piece of human space hardware developed so slowly?
Or so expensively?
Serious question: Is it not a fact that Orion is the costliest capsule in human history?
Yes, it has lots of bells and whistles that the Apollo capsules lacked. This one has XM/Sirius radio built in, butt-warmers in the seats, four-way adjustable mirrors and Big-Gulp-sized cup-holders. It’s got a guest room, a fully stocked bar, a laundry room and 24-hour concierge service. It’s a really nice spaceship!
…Orion could, in theory, be used for such a mission, but it’s a single piece of what would be a complex array of technologies and hardware. Yes, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, but only if you keep walking, and are seriously committed to the journey — no pretending or arm-waving allowed.
(I drive to the store and buy an onion. I drive home and cut it up and put it in a big pot on the stove and then go watch television. Someone asks me, “What are you doing?” and I answer, “I’m making gumbo.” And the someone says, “What about the garlic, the peppers, the celery, the fresh okra, the andouille sausage, the grilled chicken, the fish, the shrimp, those special blended peppers you always use, and the roux, not to mention the fresh French bread on the side?” I answer, “I can’t afford that right now.”)
Heh.
Congratulations To ESA
My twitter feed’s been exploding with tweets about the comet landing. Unfortunately, the harpoons apparently didn’t automatically deploy, so they don’t yet have a sure grab to the surface, which could make sampling operations difficult. The surface seems to be softer than expected. But they’re still working the problem.
This is good news for asteroid miners, though.
.@martinselvis2 @ESA_Rosetta Philae has returned volumes and many papers can already be written! This mission is GREAT for asteroid mining.
— Chris Lewicki (@interplanetary) November 12, 2014
[Update a few minutes later]
OK, hearing that they managed to anchor with the ice screws, so maybe harpoons are redundant now.