My op-ed on one-way trips to the Moon is up at Space News.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: Can Trump put people on the moon by 2024? It seems unlikely under current political circumstances.
Category Archives: Space History
The Gateway
Bob Zimmerman says it’s time for it to die.
Yes, the bureaucrats are pretending that it’s a required part of returning to the moon when, as Bob Zubrin has pointed out it’s a toll booth at best, and a likely roadblock, and there has been no public debate about its necessity.
Bezos’s O’Neillian Vision
There’s an article at Popular Mechanics, but the picture it has of Gerard O’Neill isn’t. Not positive, but I’m pretty sure it’s Brian O’Leary.
The Space Technology Curve
I don’t usually post from Facebook, but Jeff Greason has an interesting/depressing thought:
In the Star Trek episode “Tomorrow is Yesterday”, Kirk is told “I’m going to lock you up for two hundred years”. He looks at the camera (very nearly breaking the fourth wall), and says “that ought to be just about right” — in other words, telling the viewer that Star Trek is set about 200 years in the future.
That episode was filmed in 1968.
That was 50 years ago.
Somehow, I don’t feel we’ve made 1/4 of the progress from Apollo to Star Trek
As Mike Heney points out over there, we haven’t even made a quarter of the progress from Apollo back to Apollo.
The New Moon Race
A nice essay at the New Yorker (though it quotes an “historian” as saying that Nixon “killed Apollo.” Johnson did, and Kennedy probably would have, if he hadn’t been assassinated first).
Beresheet
Looks like the landing failed. Or at least the landing wasn’t soft. It probably left a long trench.
Great effort, though. Just getting into lunar orbit on the first attempt was a huge success; JPL missed the moon completely with several of the Ranger attempts. I hope they’re funded to try again.
SLS And Moon In 2024
Brazil’s Cursed Spaceport
Can Alcantara be salvaged?
Apollo 11
Amy Shira Teitel has a review of the new IMAX documentary. Looks like the closest one to us is in Century City.
Lunar Heritage Sites
My buddy Michelle Hanlon was on NPR yesterday, and the LA Times has an approving editorial.