All posts by Rand Simberg

Space

Million-Dollar View

I’m not in the room, but sitting out on the patio checking email, listening to the speakers on the…speakers. Listening to an astronaut (not sure which one) describing his flight experiences, and the awe and wonder of seeing an 800-mile-long aurora borealis from orbit. Listening to the whole panel (including Anousheh Ansari), I’m once again boggled at people who think that the spaceflight experience will be a “fad,” or that once a few people have done it the interest will drop off, or that no one will want a repeat trip.

[Update late afternoon]

Clark Lindsey has much more extensive coverage of the space tourism sessions.

Space

At The Symposium

The wireless seems to be working all right, though it’s a tad slow.

No big news this morning. There was a press conference with Elon Musk, Alex Tai, Clay Mowry (of Arianespace) and Peter Diamandis.

The most notable thing about the conference was the fact that there was someone there from Arianespace. The giggle factor continues to diminish.

In response to the first question, from me, Alex said that they are not in a position to make any announcements as to what happened in Mojave–that is for Scaled and Northrop-Grumman to announce when they have made a determination. He said that how they will respond will be at least partly a function of what caused the accident, but that they are in a reevaluation period with regard to propulsion, so that it’s possible, but not definite that there will be changes (this is a paraphrase, not a quote). In response to a related question, he noted that propulsion has never been on the vehicle critical path, so the accident didn’t necessarily set them back. It remains to be seen whether or not it will be a factor, and going to a new propulsion system could potentially slip the schedule, which remains internal (off-the-cuff comments from Richard Branson aside).

Perhaps more thoughts later.

[Update a few minutes later]

Clark Lindsey is live blogging, and has some results of the morning sessions here and here.

Popular Culture

Coming Attractions

I can’t wait to see this piece from the ‘Hawk:

I must remain tight-lipped, but can tell you my assignment involves Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, Pancho Villa, nuclear radiation, lost treasure, Mexican carnival sideshows, Tom Wolfe, alien autopsies, satanists, tequila, John Wesley Hardin, chupacabras, Aztec blood sacrifice, Mexican outlaw biker gangs, my dad, Pershing missiles, porn shops, peyote, Billy the Kid, eating brains, and a cursed hot rod.

I am not making any of this up.

Hunter Thompson, except without the drugs (other than the tequila…well, and the peyote), and a lot funnier I’ll wager.

Administrative

In NM

I got in last night, but the advertised wireless in my hotel didn’t work. I did manage to get a late dinner at the Frontier Restaurant on Central. Not a bad Mexican combo.

I had a meeting out at Kirtland this morning, and I’m heading down to Las Cruces soon. I hope that the wireless at my hotel down there isn’t falsely advertised.

[Evening update]

I arrived without incident. I actually did consider taking the scenic drive recommended in comments, just based on how it looked on the map, but I decided that I’d be doing half of it in the dark. Maybe some other time.

And thankfully (again per comments) my Albuquerque visit was carjacking free.

We’ll see how the wireless is this year out at the symposium, which starts at 8 AM tomorrow.

War Commentary

The Contrast

Michael Yon:

I was at home in the United States just one day before the magnitude hit me like vertigo: America seems to be under a glass dome which allows few hard facts from the field to filter in unless they are attached to a string of false assumptions. Considering that my trip home coincided with General Petraeus

Space

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

The supposed derived engine from Apollo isn’t going to be very derived after all:

“This one has to generate more than 290,000 pounds of thrust,” said Mike Kynard, J-2X program manager. “Not only is the J-2X going to be more powerful, it’s going to be different. Time has seen to that. This engine has its roots in Apollo, but we aren’t just lifting their work. It’s almost a new engine.”

This notion that we were going to save money with all these new vehicles by “deriving” them from existing hardware and designs was always kind of a scam (and it’s gotten more so as the designs have departed further from the original ESAS concepts). A five-segment SRB is also essentially a new motor relative to a four-segment one, in terms of understanding the structure and stresses, particularly when all of the loads (at least for The Stick) will be compressive, rather than some from the side as they are in the current Shuttle stack. The only thing really being preserved is the very costly, but politically essential “heritage workforce.” It may be necessary for political preservation of the program in Congress, but it does nothing to reduce costs of access to space, or truly open up the frontier.

[Update a few minutes later]

Thomas James is similarly unsurprised.

[Update a few minutes later yet]

Thomas also has further thoughts on whether or not space is the new Australia (with some comments on the history of northern Michigan).