Stephen Green has some thoughts on how to save it.
I’ve never been enough of a Star Wars fan to care whether it lives or dies. I would note, though, that $40M went a lot farther four decades ago than it would today.
Category Archives: Space
My Interview On The Space Show
I was on last Monday; it’s been archived.
And sorry for light posting, but last week (and weekend) was wall-to-wall space conferences, between Space Tech Expo in Pasadena, and ISDC by LAX. And now I have three weeks to write a proposal for the LEO Commercialization NASA Research Announcement that came out the week before.
And Then There Were Four
Alan Bean has left the earth for the last time.
I just saw Buzz last night at the ISDC awards ceremony, which was probably the most encouraging in the history of that meeting, in which (amid saving The Expanse for another season, with many of the cast and production crew present) Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, laid out his vision for humanity in space that was shared by all in that room. There will be a party tonight, and I don’t think the organization will have had a more joyous one in its history. It was fitting that it occurred in the very same hotel where the very first conference was held, thirty-seven years ago.
Trump’s Commercial Space Policy
A White House press release.
Asimov And O’Neill
The Space Studies Institute has resurrected a old television discussion of the prospects for space colonies.
It’s interesting to note that when this occurred, we didn’t know how much hydrogen was available on the moon and in the rest of the solar system.
The Space Show
I’ll be on this afternoon, at 2 PM PDT, to talk about space settlement, the OST, and probably ranting about the latest safety insanity from NASA.
Ariane
They’re frustrated that they have to actually be competitive in the launch market. And they keep using this word “subsidy.” I don’t think it means what they think it means. If anyone gets a subsidy, it’s ULA, not SpaceX, and sure as hell not Blue Origin. Plus, an open admission that their rocket is a jobs program.
Tom Wolfe
Thoughts from Tim Fernholz on his space legacy.
The Latest Safety Insanity
OK, so I read this, and the steam that shot out of my ears took the fresh paint off the wall of the kitchen on both sides of the room:
His committee recommended that NASA and the other ISS partners should plan for ways to operate the station with a reduced crew if commercial crew vehicles aren’t ready to enter service by the fall of 2019.
“Given these schedule risks, we recommend the partnership pursue plans to protect for a minimum crew capability to ensure ISS viability during the flight development phase,” he said. “NASA’s biggest priority is maintaining the U.S. presence on the ISS in case the commercial crew launch dates slip.”
One option he mentioned at the meeting is “providing training to Russian crewmembers on the USOS critical systems.” That training, he said, would be provided to cosmonauts scheduled to fly to the station on Soyuz missions in September 2019 and March 2020.
So, let me get this straight: In order to avoid any risk of loss of crew (and there is no way to do that), we are going to not only make ourselves more dependent on the Russians, but further reduce, if not eliminate any actual utility we’re going to get out of a facility in which we’ve invested over a hundred billion dollars and, as a bonus, put that facility at risk.
All because “safety is the highest priority.”
This is insane.
LOP-G
Gerald Black writes that it’s a waste of time and money.
You don’t say. Its only purpose is to give SLS/Orion something to do.