Suni Williams reviews both the Boeing and SpaceX designs. Note that these are flight suits, not EVA, which still needs a lot of improvement. Also, I assume that these won’t be required for passengers on BFR. At what point will they have sufficient confidence in Dragon to not require them?
Category Archives: Business
Space Roundup
Politico has started to cover space (I met Bryan Bender at ISDC), and they interviewed Bridenstine (among other news, including thoughts from Rohrabacher), who seems supportive of a U.S. Space Guard. The idea seems to be getting quite a big of traction this year.
Corporate Recruiters
They’re paying far too much attention to prestigious degrees.
Yes. There’s no reason to think that will give them better employees. And all this does is continue to inflate the disastrous higher-ed bubble.
[Update a few minutes later]
This seems related: Students complain that a professor’s op-ed makes them feel bad.
Bob Zimmerman
He’s doing his annual fundraiser. He does good stuff.
I might do this myself, but I don’t feel like I’ve been doing quality blogging recently. Too busy with other stuff, some of which is remunerative.
JWST
We expected this yesterday, but here it is:
Following an Independent Review Board report on the James Webb Space Telescope project, NASA has announced a further delay to the telescope’s anticipated launch. Coming just three months after a year-long delay to 2020, NASA now says the telescope will not be ready to launch until 2021 at the earliest and that the project will breach its $8.8 billion USD cost cap.
The cited mismanagement at NG and NASA is just staggering. The new overrun is about the amount that it was supposed to cost, in total, originally. What a programmatic disaster.
I hereby rename JWST the Jeebus Wept Sunkcost Trap
— SafeNotAnOption (@SafeNotAnOption) June 27, 2018
[Update after noon]
Here’s the story from Jeff Foust.
[Update a while later]
This can never be allowed to happen again…. The good news is that it does not have to. On Orbit Assembly transcends the limitations around building a big telescope on the ground, shaking the hell out of it for 10 minutes, then deploying it autonomously without fail. https://t.co/lPmq4UgdVi
— Dennis Wingo (@wingod) June 27, 2018
[Thursday-morning update]
Here‘s Marina Koren’s take:
A wiring error caused workers to apply too much voltage to the spacecraft’s pressure transducers, severely damaging them. And during an acoustics test, which examines whether hardware can survive the loud sounds of launch, the fasteners designed to hold the sun shield together came loose. The incident scattered 70 bolts, and engineers scrambled to find them. They’re still looking for a few. “We’re really close to finding every one of the pieces,” Zerbuchen said.
These three errors alone resulted in a schedule delay of about 1.5 years and $600 million, Young said.
I think that’s about Northrop Grumman’s annual net income. If I were NASA, I’d tell them that if they ever want another NASA contract, they’ll eat it themselves.
[Update a while later]
Alex Witze has more, over at Nature.
Disrupting Education
Elon has started a private school. I like the name.
Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity
If this new paper is correct, we should be firing up our SUVs.
[Friday update]
Thirty years on, how do climate predictions hold up?
Not well. [paywall]
[Bumped]
Left-Coast Lawlessness
Sounds like San Francisco, Seattle and Portland are becoming like third-world hell holes. I’m supposed to go up to the city in July for the ISS conference. Doesn’t seem like a great location choice.
Illegal Immigration Solutions
Democrats have zero tolerance for them.
It’s all about importing more voters to swamp the ones here who won’t bend to their will.
[Update a few minutes later]
Who wants to solve the crisis? Not Congressional Democrats. They don’t want a solution; they want the issue.
SpaceShipOne
It’s the fourteenth anniversary of its first space flight. Here’s a blog post I wrote in Mojave the evening before.
And fourteen years later, not a single passenger has flown in this flawed concept. https://t.co/fi4iBuTH7b
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) June 21, 2018
[Update a while later]
The future ain’t what it used to be: Space tourism edition.
I do think though, that with Blue Origin getting ready to start test-passenger flights, it’s finally arriving.