We are now into the longest gap in our ability to get Americans into space on American rockets since Alan Shepard flew.
The long gap was caused by our risk aversion, because "safety," not returning America to space, is "the highest priority." https://t.co/bI0SYEDHHm
— SafeNotAnOption (@SafeNotAnOption) April 18, 2017
Mass producing sugar rockets.
[Update a while later]
Over at Arocket, it is pointed out that probably the most hazardous thing with this is not the propellants, or tamping them, but potential shards from PVC casings.
Bob Zimmerman says that Trump should open up the solar system by renegotiating the deal.
“The rate of loss of gas today is very low — slow enough that it would take billions of years to remove the equivalent amount of gas that is in the atmosphere,” principal investigator Bruce Jakosky said in an email. There is some CO2 left in the polar ice and in carbon-bearing materials, he added, but not nearly enough to warm the temperature significantly if it somehow was put back in the atmosphere.
“There isn’t a source of CO2 that could replenish the atmosphere — even outgassing of CO2 from volcanoes has got to be incredibly slow today,” Jakosky added. “If we wanted to put enough CO2 into the atmosphere to raise temperatures significantly, it would take something like 10 million kilometer-sized comets (if they were all made entirely of CO2). This is just not feasible.”
I think there are other possibilities (e.g., bombarding it with carbonaceous and other asteroids, and comets, and manufacturing the CO2 on the surface), but largely, I consider the obsession with Mars to be much more romantic than practical, at least as a new earth.
Some thoughts from “Main Engine Cut Off.”
I’m glad to see that Congress isn’t pushing the AR1 as hard as it’s been. This looks, ultimately, like bad news for AJR. They’re going to have to become more competitive if they want to maintain their business. They’re trying to do it with printing engine parts, but I don’t know if it will be enough. They’re going to have to really slice overhead, I think.
Frank Morring and Lara Seligman have a long piece describing the coming exciting upheaval in the space industry.
…with lunar and Mars regolith simulants.
If Congress and NASA were serious about opening space to humanity, this is the sort of thing that NASA would be spending more money on, instead of a monster rocket.
[Update a while later]
Related, I think: Questions that the Trump transition team asked NASA.
I’d like to attend this event. Maybe we’ll be through bathroom-renovation hell by then.
Falcon Heavy is getting ready for its hot-fire test in Texas, and LC-40 is getting back in business after the boo boo last fall.