Artificial spider silk.
Cool.
Category Archives: Business
End Of An Era
Henry Vanderbilt is retiring from putting on the annual Space Access Conference. The good news is that it accomplished a lot of its goals, as we enter a new era of lower-cost launch, and likely destined to continue to see prices fall. I hope that someone else can take up the torch.
Moon Or Mars?
The latest on the issue.
It’s a pointless discussion, because it presumes it’s going to be a government program: Apollo back tot the moon again, or Apollo to Mars. We need to be developing capabilities to go wherever we want, affordably. Then let the people paying for it decide.
Related: Howard Bloom says that NASA needs to get out of the rocket business, and start working on an actual superhighway in space. I’m not sure I want Marshall in charge of that, though. To put it mildly.
The 2017 Launch Market
Bob Zimmerman has some prognostications.
I agree that it’s likely to be a banner year, with an even brighter future.
Obama’s Legacy
It’s not so glorious.
I suspect history will judge harshly. And of course, in doing so, it will be racist.
The SpaceX Failure
The final assessment. I’m selfishly hoping they’ll delay past the 7th, because we get in from London at 2 AM on that date, and won’t be in a mood for a drive up to Vandenberg.
[Update a few minutes later]
Return to flight now scheduled for Sunday night. We’ll try to watch from the beach, if the weather is clear.
The Biggest Space Stories Of The Year
I usually write these sorts of things, but I’m on vacation, and Mike Wall has ten. I think that the Bezos announcement of New Glenn and New Armstrong are as big as Elon’s Mars announcement though. I consider Bezos both more ambitious, and more credible, in the sense that he is spending his own money, and not lobbying the government for it.
The Reactionless Drive
The Chinese are claiming they’ve successfully tested it on orbit.
I remain skeptical.
A New Little Ice Age
Has it already started?
Earth’s new climate will affect much more than the energy sector. Abdussamatov leaves us with a dire warning.
“The world must start preparing for the new Little Ice Age right now. Politicians and business leaders must make full economic calculations of the impact of the new Little Ice Age on everything — industry, agriculture, living conditions, development. The most reasonable way to fight against the new Little Ice Age is a complex of special steps aimed at support of economic growth and energy-saving production to adapt mankind to the forthcoming period of deep cooling.”
An overheated planet has never been a threat, say climate skeptics, not today, not ever in human history. An underheated planet, in contrast, is a threat humans have repeatedly faced over the last millennium, and now we’re due again.
To me, the evidence is quite a bit more compelling than it is for warming. He’s relying on history and empirical data, not computer models.
To The Moon?
Bob Zimmmerman speculates on what the Trump administration might do in civil space policy.