They’re coming in the next decade. And there will be many activities allowed on them that cannot be performed on the ISS.
Category Archives: Space
Trump’s NASA Proposal
Loren Grush has the details.
This is just a proposal; as she notes, Culberson is likely to restore the Europa lander. And in general, the White House proposes, and Congress disposes. What really matters is what gets appropriated.
The worst thing about the NASA budget proposal is that SLS/Orion survive. https://t.co/rAXed575QU
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) March 17, 2017
The Real Expanse
Thoughts on the worthwhile difficulties of settling space.
The Economics Of Airfares
An interesting history, including a bonus discussion of space tourism.
The Planetary Society
Entirely not unexpectedly, they have some terrible suggestions for Trump and NASA:
- Maintain the exploration of Mars as the organizing principle for NASA’s human spaceflight program
- Direct NASA to plan an executable, affordable path for sending humans to Mars orbit by 2033
- Expand NASA’s highly successful science portfolio
- Continue to grow and support the commercial space industry
- Initiate annual five percent increases to NASA’s budget for five years
The only good one is the fourth. Here are mine:
- Make the continuous reduction of the cost of space activities the organizing principle for NASA’s human spaceflight program
- Direct NASA to end development of its own launch systems and to start to procure propellant in LEO to enable trips beyond
- Expand NASA’s science portfolio with data purchases
- Continue to grow and support the commercial space industry
- Direct funding from SLS/Orion to support 1-4
Commercial Space Activities
Should they be “permissionless”? Marcia Smith reports on an interesting hearing on the Hill last week, which I attended.
Wasteful Spending
Trump is going to order a government-wide review of it.
If Trump really wants to review wasteful government spending, at NASA he can start with SLS/Orion: https://t.co/eR8yiprfgO
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) March 13, 2017
[Update a while later]
Congratulations to Altius Space Machines for their NASA SBIR Phase II win for cryo propellant transfer technology development. If we canceled SLS/Orion, we could found several thousand efforts like this.
A New Cold War With Russia
Michael Totten says to brace yourself.
It’s too bad that Congress doesn’t take human spaceflight seriously, so we remain dependent on them.
RIP, Athena
I think that Kodiak will be hardest hit by this.
Capitalism In Space
Bob Zimmerman has published an interesting and timely paper. I haven’t read it yet, but it can be downloaded from the Center For a New American Security, or from his site.