Bob Zimmerman has an optimistic report about the future, after a meeting in Tucson.
Category Archives: Business
Sputnik
It’s been 61 years now since that event upended U.S. space policy. It’s worth (re)reading a piece I wrote a few years ago at The New Atlantis, while we’re waiting for my most recent one to come on line. Sadly, it holds up pretty well, and I would make the same policy recommendations today.
The Return Of The Space Visionaries
About a year ago, I started writing an essay comparing and contrasting Bezos’s versus Musk’s visions for humanity in space. As is often the case, it expanded into a history of space visions in general, and how we’re finally returning to the old ones, after the tragic detour of Apollo. It’s out in the current issue, but unfortunately, isn’t yet available on line. I expect it will be in a few weeks or less, though.
[Update a few minutes later]
This is sort of a space issue. There is a piece by Bob Zubrin laying out his concept for Moon Direct, bypassing what he calls the space toll booth (Gateway), and another by Micah Meadowcroft on how Mars will disappoint.
A New Space-Radiation Issue
It will affect our innards.
I’d note that the main technology we need to deal with this is affordable transportation to allow adequate shielding.
Nutrition “Science”
A fraud is exposed, but it’s a much larger problem:
Data dredging is fairly common in health research, and especially in studies involving food. It is one reason contradictory nutrition headlines seem to be the norm: One week coffee, cheese and red wine are found to be protective against heart disease and cancer, and the next week a new crop of studies pronounce that they cause it. Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, said that many researchers are under enormous pressure to churn out papers. One recent analysis found that thousands of scientists publish a paper every five days.
I liked this:
“P-hacking is a really serious problem,” said Dr. Ivan Oransky, a co-founder of Retraction Watch, who teaches medical journalism at New York University. “Not to be overly dramatic, but in some ways it throws into question the very statistical basis of what we’re reading as science journalists and as the public.”
You don’t say.
It goes far beyond nutrition. A lot of drug research is based on this sort of thing as well, including the statin scam.
Toward A Robust Space Economy
Ian Fichtenbaum has an op-ed at Space News describing the need to make space activities like other activities. I agree with it. A few years ago, I sat on a panel at Space Access discussing the need to “impedance match” launch with LEO operations, and decouple the two. This is the future.
[Update a while later]
Yes, I understand the confusion about my use of those seemingly contradictory terms, but I’m not using them literally. By “impedance match” I mean providing an interface between the launch system and orbital transportation systems (and space assembly), rather than having the launch system do the whole job of delivering an assembled satellite. This also decouples the launch system, in terms of schedule, from the orbital activities.
[Update a few minutes later]
Meanwhile, with regard to activity on the Hill, Keith Cowing comments about the state of NASA.
[Friday-morning update]
Another article on how NASA is changing for the 21st century. I’m a little skeptical about this:
In the next decade, a typical mission could go something like this: NASA astronauts board a SpaceX Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) along with commercial astronauts and a few wealthy tourists. The rocket stops at the new space hotel circling the globe to drop off the visitors and the NASA astronauts spend a few hours there filming an advertisement and lending their endorsement to the privately owned “microgravity resort.”
From there, the commercial astronauts continue on to service the Lockheed-Martin lunar gateway, a space station in orbit around the moon that functions as a sort of truck stop for traffic between Earth and the moon. The NASA astronauts journey on to the lunar surface to continue building the agency’s new outpost there, where both SpaceX and competitor Blue Origin already have permanent landing pads and the latter provides meals prepared by the only off-planet Whole Foods in the galaxy.
I don’t think the Gateway exists in this timeline. And of course, Bill Nye kicks the stuffing out of the usual straw man:
“It is important to keep in mind that all the money spent in space is really spent on Earth,” Bill Nye, celebrity “Science Guy” and CEO of the nonprofit advocacy and outreach group The Planetary Society, said via email.
It’s only important to keep that in mind for idiots who imagine that we are literally shipping currency into space. I’ve never run into such a person. Of course the money is spent on earth. The issue is how effectively it’s spent, and much of NASA’s budget, particularly for human spaceflight, is wasted.
[Bumped]
[Late-morning update]
Then there’s this:
So what happens if BFR beats SLS to launch and also winds up being more economical and practical? Will NASA be forced to discard over a decade’s worth of rocket development to go with the commercial alternative?
“The fact that we’ve got hardware in the factory, to me, says a lot,” said Rob Chambers, director of human spaceflight strategy for Lockheed Martin, which isn’t involved with SLS, but is building the new Orion crew capsule for NASA that would fly atop it and has been involved with practically every robotic NASA mission to Mars.
Yes. It says that we’ve wasted a metric buttload of taxpayer money, and will continue to do so until it’s finally canceled.
ULA’s Decision
It’s no surprise, but they finally admitted that they want the BE-4, because they don’t want to continue Atlas. But at least AJR got hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in cost-plus contracts to develop an engine that no one wants to buy.
Luxembourg
This looks like a potential interesting conference, but the “Agenda” gives one no idea about who will actually be on the program, or what they’d be talking about. You’d think they’d have some speakers confirmed two months before the event. Another issue is that the “Accommodations” section says to grab a room early, because there is a conflicting event and rooms may be in short supply. That may just be to get people to pay $500 a night for a conference that only costs $350.
Japan To The Moon
…privately. Yes, it’s ambitious, but I don’t think this is the problem:
The longer-term goals are laudable, but the company seems to seriously underestimate the difficulty of reaching lunar ice, harvesting it under extremely cold conditions, and producing propellant from ice. These are all significant engineering challenges in unprecedented conditions. Moreover, even under optimistic circumstances, NASA’s plans to return to the Moon wouldn’t put a handful of humans—let alone hundreds—on the lunar surface before the late 2020s, and China doesn’t intend for such landings until the early 2030s.
I don’t think that NASA’s or China’s plans are relevant to private lunar plans.
The Latest Russian Malware
…embeds itself in the BIOS. It seems to be a Windows issue, though, which is another reason I use Linux.