It’s delayed again, and over budget. Again.
I would have canceled it years ago. It was a mistaken concept from the get go. For what we’ve spent on this program, we could have had orbital servicing capability, obviating the need for the origami, and even allowing servicing in situ.
Thoughts on it from Laura Montgomery, with its implications for Outer Space Treaty interpretation.
Shannon Stirone has a nice essay on the history and state of affairs, and Congress’s skewed space-budget priorities.
I think the future of deep-space comm will be lasers, and it may be provided commercially.
An article adapted from Christian Davenport’s new book, which I’m reading in Florida.
Behold, the new British Space Act. I and others had not-insignificant influence in forming this. They were headed down a bad European road a few years ago. They were originally going to allow the European aviation safety agency regulate it, which would have been disastrous. Instead, as we recommended, it is modeled closely on the U.S. launch-licensing system.
The first Mars visitors will probably die. Of course, we’re all going to die somewhere.
As I note in the book, it’s very unlikely that the Shackleton ad was real. If it had been published in a London broadsheet, it would have been spelled “honour.”
[Update a couple minutes later]
And per usual, a lot of ignorance and stupidity in comments over there.
I’ve got review copies of Tim Fernholz’s
…is not required by Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty. I suspect a lot of people at COPUOS would disagree.
[Update a while later]
Sorry, bad link fixed.
Trump apparently is impressed with commercial space.
…wants to use Birdzilla to launch a reusable spaceplane.
Not sure what this means, though:
The Black Ice space plane — should it be built — would be about as big as the former space shuttle developed by NASA and capable of staying up for at least three days.
What does “as big” mean? Similar dimensions to a Shuttle orbiter? If it has to carry propellant, it won’t have much payload. I wonder what kind of GLOW that aircraft can handle?
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s another story on the subject from Eric Berger. Haven’t looked at comments yet, but there may be some discussion of performance there.