I haven’t read it yet, but I question the assumptions.
Category Archives: Space
Terraforming Mars
There’s not enough CO2 there. Doesn’t seem like a problem to me; just import carbon and oxygen (and hydrogen) from carbonaceous asteroids in the belt. And of course, they have to throw this in:
If you believe it’s possible to terraform Mars, you also must believe in human-caused climate change, because it’s the same process. Even if it’s impossible to terraform Mars, it’s clearly possible to areoform the mid-latitudes of Earth. Because people are doing it.
Ummmmm…no. We’re not.
Meanwhile, Tim Fernholz says we’re going to have to be careful to not contaminate the water there.
Coming Into Port
Pauline Acaline got some nice telephotos of JRTI and Mr. Steven coming into the port of Los Angeles after retrieving the latest Falcon 9 Block 5 and half of the fairing. It’s amazing how clean those rockets are coming back with the new design.
Happy Birthday To NASA
It’s sixty years old today.
I think it’s earned an early retirement.
[Via Gail Heriot, with the usual stupidity about “Muslim outreach” in the comments]
Regulating Space Activity
I oppose the Senate version of this bill.
I think that Commerce should be in charge, and I’ve said in the recent past, keep the FAA’s head in the clouds.
The First Block 5 Reuse
Take that, STS. When they demonstrate the one-day turn, that will be history making.
[Sunday-morning update]
Commenters are noting that the one-week turnaround was for the drone ship, not the booster.
Congress Tells USAF To Consider Reusables
Eric Berger has the latest.
@SciGuySpace Part of that history was the idiotic policy in the early 90s of telling USAF to use expendables, and assigning reusables to NASA, which resulted in the disastrous X-33 and X-34 programs, which "proved" that reusables couldn't be done.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) July 27, 2018
Crazy Week
Sorry for light blogging, but Saturday I drove up to the Cape from West Palm Beach, picked up tickets for the 49th Apollo gala, drove over to Orlando, rented a tux, checked into my hotel room, got cleaned up and put on the rented duds, drove back over to Cocoa Beach, took a bus through heavy rain to KSC with other attendees. About 2300, we took the buses back to the Cocoa Hilton, where there was an after party that lasted long enough for us to go out on the beach to watch the Telsat launch of a Block 5, at 0150. Then I drove back to Orlando, fueled the rental car, got three and a half hours sleep, took the car to the airport for flight back to LAX at 0750. After I got home, I did a two-hour stint of The Space Show at 1200 PDT on Evoloterra and the Apollo anniversary, including the fact that next year will be a half century since humans first stepped on the moon (and 46 years since they last did; (only) one of those four remaining men, Harrison Schmitt, was in attendance at the gala).
Then, yesterday afternoon, I had to unpack and repack, and make final changes on my poster for this week’s ISS R&D conference in San Francisco. This morning, I had to go rent another car, and I’ll have to go pick up the poster at Staples on my way out of town, then drive up to Berkeley to stay with friends, to be at the conference tomorrow.
IOW, blogging may be light this week.
[Update a while later, before hitting the road]
Ken Kremer has the story on the Falcon Telstar launch that much of the media ignored.
Blue-Collar Space
Laura Montgomery has a couple related book reviews.
July 20th
It’s not just the 49th Apollo anniversary; it’s also the anniversary of the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler. Plus, it’s the 25th anniversary of the (likely) murder of Vince Foster.