Glenn Reynolds (and Sarah Hoyt, and others) writes that we’re living through them. Sure looks like it.
[Update a while later]
Our vague yet imminent malaise.
[Update late morning]
Speaking of Sarah Hoyt, from late last week, strange days in America.
Category Archives: Space
Space And Religion
A brief history of their relationship. I infer that she thinks evangelicals not supporting spaceflight is a problem, because of concern that it could reduce public support for it. Apparently she doesn’t realize that public support is irrelevant to a space future that is funded not by the government, but by private interests, which is what our space future now is.
[Update a while later]
Related, sort of. Laura Seward Forczyk describes her eclipse experience.
[Update mid-afternoon]
Another account from Miri Kramer.
[Update Wednesday morning]
It’s good to be an earthling.
The Eclipse In Southern California
Would have liked to see totality (guess it remains on the bucket list, maybe 2024 or somewhere else sooner), but we got about sixty percent coverage here. There was a thick marine layer when we awoke, but the clouds broke up in time for us to watch the whole thing. As I saw the moon slice along the left side of the sun, it was easy to imagine it projecting the full shadow a thousand miles north. I took a picture of a natural pinhole camera with hundreds of crescents in our driveway.
Just past peak in Manhattan Beach. pic.twitter.com/OHCvj9DFh6
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) August 21, 2017
A few of my eclipse jokes on Twitter:
If I were Trump, I'd have gone out on the Truman balcony and announced to my Red State supporters that I'll be bringing the sun back soon.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) August 21, 2017
Making eclipses grate again! https://t.co/APqwah83oQ
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) August 21, 2017
There is nothing an eclipse can do that will cause it to lose its base supporters. https://t.co/qjv3hj0jEp
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) August 21, 2017
OK, eclipse is almost over in Los Angeles. Safe to look at the sun without glasses again.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) August 21, 2017
Eclipse is over; it's OK to let your kids and pets stare at the sun again. #NotReally #DontDoThis
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) August 21, 2017
OK, show's over out west. Safe to release all the coons, squirrels and other varmints you people brought into your homes for their safety.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) August 21, 2017
This Week’s Vandenberg Launch
Even though they have enough performance for a return to launch site, they’ll still be landing downrange on the ship (or perhaps closer to the site). Chris G. explains why.
Regulating Commercial Space Companies
Laura Montgomery says that Congress and/or the White House could ease the burden of Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty. Some at the COPUOS and UNOOSA will bitch, but Washington should team up with Luxembourg, who is taking the lead in Europe, on this.
Animal Reactions To The Eclipse
Just had an argument on Twitter with someone who doesn’t believe they’ll have them, but the reports go back centuries. They’ll be very confused.
TDRS
Today’s Atlas launch heralded an end of an era:
Younes suggested that those future data relay satellites might be owned and operated by commercial entities rather than NASA. “NASA’s optimum goal is to push the technology to enable the commercial sector such that these services can be provided by commercial providers, and NASA will not need in the future to build these kinds of capabilities,” he said. “They can become a user, like any other user.”
In general, NASA needs to move to procuring services, rather than hardware.
Moon Village
The brilliant and lovely Angeliki Kapoglou (Ms. #MoonVillage on Twitter) has set up a new web site. She’ll be putting out a monthly newsletter, which you can subscribe to there.
The Google Lunar X-Prize
There’s a lot of talk today about their having “extended” the deadline to March 31 of next year. I have a clarification in email from Katherine Schelbert:
To clarify, this is not an extension. In this case, this is more of a re-focus. The most recent Dec 31, 2017 date was established as the date by which teams needed to initiate a launch, and was used as a means to down select to the current 5 finalists. Now, what is more important to teams, who all have different mission profiles (and paths to the moon, length of time in orbit) is the deadline by which they need to complete the mission, which is now the only date that matters. This competition is designed to not just inspire teams to launch, but to complete the mission, which is also why we are further incentivizing teams with the in-space Milestone Prizes, which are important achievements that will occur post-launch, on the way to fulfilling the competition requirements.
FWIW.
New Leadership At NASA
Apparently it’s going to be Jim Bridenstine as administrator, and former Chief of Staff John Schumacher as his Deputy. This is much better news than if Lightfoot had been given the job. Bridenstine told me in February that he had read my book. He will continue to pay lip service to SLS as long as seems politically necessary, but I think he knows what a programmatic disaster it is.