Some thoughts from “Main Engine Cut Off.”
I’m glad to see that Congress isn’t pushing the AR1 as hard as it’s been. This looks, ultimately, like bad news for AJR. They’re going to have to become more competitive if they want to maintain their business. They’re trying to do it with printing engine parts, but I don’t know if it will be enough. They’re going to have to really slice overhead, I think.
The budget cuts don’t go deep enough:
The chart is brutally bipartisan. Debt increased under Republican presidents and Democratic presidents. It increased under Democratic congresses and Republican congresses. In war and in peace, in boom times and in busts, after tax hikes and tax cuts, the Potomac flowed ever deeper with red ink.
Our leaders like to talk about sustainability. Forget sustainable — how is this sane?
Yet when any politician hesitates before increasing spending, he’s portrayed as a madman. When Paul Ryan, R–Wis., offered a thoughtful plan to reduce the debt over decades, he was pushing grannies into the Grand Canyon and pantsing park rangers on the way out.
One of the many cons of Trump is that his budget cuts are going to solve the problem, when they don’t even scratch the surface. I’m not opposed to them, in general, mostly because I think they’re funding things that aren’t a federal responsibility, but it’s ludicrous to think they’ll have any significant fiscal effect. As long as he refuses to touch entitlements, we’re fiscally doomed.
Why it’s “almost useless and misleading.”
No, actually, it’s worse than useless.
Frank Morring and Lara Seligman have a long piece describing the coming exciting upheaval in the space industry.
…with lunar and Mars regolith simulants.
If Congress and NASA were serious about opening space to humanity, this is the sort of thing that NASA would be spending more money on, instead of a monster rocket.
[Update a while later]
Related, I think: Questions that the Trump transition team asked NASA.
I’d like to attend this event. Maybe we’ll be through bathroom-renovation hell by then.
Falcon Heavy is getting ready for its hot-fire test in Texas, and LC-40 is getting back in business after the boo boo last fall.
If, like me, you couldn’t make it to Colorado Springs last week, Calla Cofield has highlights.
[Noon update]
Valerie Insinna has the story on Tory’s choice in engines. Aerojet Rocketdyne has to have fingers crossed in the hope that BE-4 testing doesn’t go well.
Dick Eagleson has some interesting speculation.
Meanwhile, is the small-sat launch industry going to be Amazoned?