Category Archives: Space

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Idiot Conservatives

21 Comments

Eric Berger has the story on how, in attacking SpaceX, they’re ripping off the taxpayer and actively damaging national security.

[Update a while later]

Meanwhile, the target launch date for Falcon Heavy is now late December.

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

Mike Griffin

6 Comments

The guy who ignored the advice of the Aldridge Commission and industry to utilize commercial providers for the Vision for Space Exploration, instead issuing no-bid cost-plus contracts for Constellation, that were overrunning and slipping more than a year per year when it was canceled, seems like an odd choice to be put in charge of reforming procurement at the Pentagon.

Business, Economics, Space, Technology and Society

NASA’s Risk Aversion

6 Comments

Remember when they were insisting on new-car-smell Dragons for CRS missions? Well, they’ve now approved flight-proven boosters. As I’ve long said, there will come a day when customers will demand a discount to fly on an unproven vehicle.

[Update a while later]

With today’s launch, SpaceX will double its record for annual launches.

[Update half an hour before launch]

You can follow launch and landing at the webcast.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Elon’s Plans

84 Comments

Doug Messier has a critique, with which I largely agree. He does seem to be laser focused on solving the transportation problem (which was the first one he encountered when he tried to implement his initial Mars plans). I emailed him years ago about the fact that we have no idea whether or not we can conceive/gestate in 0.4g. His response was basically, “that’s not my problem right now.”

But this blinkered mindset may not ultimately serve him well in terms of his long-term goal. It would be tragic for him if he solved the transportation problem, but not the biological one, and his dreams of Mars colonies ended up being still born, despite the cost reduction of transportation there.