Category Archives: Space

Business, Economics, Law, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Colonizing The Moon

31 Comments

I agree that we have the tech to do this affordably, but I strenuously disagree with this:

The activities at this moon base would be focusing on science, as is the case in the Antarctic. It could provide an official U.S. government presence on the moon, and its motivation would be rooted in U.S. national policy—again as are the U.S. Antarctic bases.

To the degree that the focus should be on “science,” it should be about better learning how to live on the moon, and Antarctica is a terrible precedent, in that we aren’t allowed to exploit it for its resources. That’s also why the Outer Space Treaty itself, which was modeled on the Antarctic Treaty, is a problem.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The NASA Budget

40 Comments

Eric Berger has looked at it, and (unsurprisingly) the Trump administration seems to be in no hurry to get back to the moon. The NASA budget is going to become increasingly irrelevant in the next few years.

[Update a while later]

Dick Eagleson wonders not only if SLS’s days are numbered, but just how low the number is?

SLS, as currently envisioned, is a farce. Its development has been glacial and insanely expensive. It plows absolutely no significant new technological ground. It will be slow and insanely expensive to build. It is entirely expendable. Its associated spacecraft, Orion, is, at best, a Moon-craft, lacking heat shielding sufficient to withstand an Earth return from any significantly more distant point and, in any case, having life support capability for only 12 person-weeks of continuous occupancy.

But other than that, it’s great.

Last week’s launch was a major temblor, I think.

[Update early afternoon]

Here‘s Christian Davenport’s story (I saw him at the launch last week).

[Tuesday-morning update]

Katherine Mangu-Ward: It’s not a crazy idea to privatize the ISS.

Business, Economics, Law, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Space Transportation Conference

10 Comments

I’m tweeting about it, which is a better way of rapid updating than blogging, and it gets a lot more views. So…

[Update a while later]

Meanwhile, SpaceX will be testing elements of BFR next year.

Also, the failed center corefirst stage that they failed to expend from the previous Falcon 9 launch couldn’t be safely recovered, so the Air Force scuttled it with an air strike.

Yes, as per comments, I screwed up in the middle of listening to a talk on launch regulations at the same time.

Business, Space, Technology and Society

At The Cape

98 Comments

I drove up from Boynton Beach this morning, and was at the press center by the VAB in Kennedy Space Center this afternoon. I’ll be heading back over there in the morning, I hope for a launch. Elon was wished well by both Tory Bruno and Jeff Bezos.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s Eric Berger’s story on the interview with Elon at the pad today. I didn’t quite get there in time to go out there. He made some news.

[Update a few minutes later]

Alan Boyle (who I also saw today) has a guide to what to watch for.

[Update after midnight]

Elon’s new video.

[Update a while later]

Sorry, fixed the last link.

[Tuesday-afternoon update]

For those wondering, launch has been pushed back to 1505 in hopes that upper-level winds die down. About 20% higher than they want. That leaves a little less than an hour in the window.

[Late evening update]

OK, obviously, everyone saw it. I’m in DC now, after fighting traffic after the launch to the airport.

Many thousands of people saw the first Shuttle launch. Many thousands of people also it land in California, two days later. The intersection of those two sets isn’t large, but I’m a member of it. I imagine that the number of people who saw both those and were present at today’s launch, which is at least as historic, in its own way, is a very elite club, perhaps fewer than have gone into space.

I’ve seen four Falcon 9 launches, but none as close as this one. This one you could feel, and the sound was different, with 27 engines, instead of two large SRBs and three SSMEs. I’d be curious to know difference the decibels. But of course, something the Shuttle never did was launch and land within minutes, and seeing and hearing those two coming back, with the very loud double triple sonic booms, was amazing. As I noted on Twitter, few words are more overused than “awesome,” but that word pretty well describes what I witnessed this afternoon.

[Update before bed]

“This may be the day that Elon opens up space to the masses.”