Category Archives: Space

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

The Space Launch System

30 Comments

A history. I’d dispute this, though:

“Humans are pretty needy,” Lyles told me. “You’re taking water, you’re taking all of their environmental control systems, and whatever they need on a really long mission. A large, heavy launch vehicle is almost a no-brainer.”

NASA is not alone in this conclusion. During a two-week span last month, private companies SpaceX and Blue Origin both unveiled giant, SLS-scale launchers that will become key parts of their future spaceflight aspirations.

One of these things is not like the others. SpaceX and Blue Origin want to build big rockets because they plan to put thousands of people into space. NASA is doing it because Congress wants to keep thousands employed in the right zip codes (as the article makes clear).

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Safety Of SLS

8 Comments

I have no difficulty whatsoever believing this:

Most troubling of all, the internal assumption at MSFC is that the first SLS flight will have a built-in risk of failure of around 8%. This risk is being “baked in” to the design of SLS in part due to decisions being made at MSFC about software and avionics – decisions that are being made so as to not surface troublesome issues that no one wants to deal with. One can imagine that safety folks at MSFC are nervous.

This is no way to build a rocket folks.

Once you understand that (unlike at SpaceX) the goal is not to build a rocket, it all makes sense.

Business, Economics, Space, Technology and Society

SpaceX’s Announcement

96 Comments

A preview:

[Update a while later]

Here’s Nadia Drake’s story on the announcement. The Q and A ended up being sort of a goat rodeo.

[Update early evening, PDT]

Here’s the full presentation.

[Wednesday-morning update]

Here’s Eric Berger’s take, and Jeff Foust’s. And one from Casey Dreier at the Planetary Society.

[Update a couple minutes later]

And Chris Davenport’s.

[Update a couple more minutes later]

And Loren Grush says there’s still a lot to figure out. No kidding.

[Update another couple minutes later]

And Wayne McCandless is skeptical (with a plug of my book).

[Update a few minutes later]

Thoughts from Bob Zubrin.

[Update a while later]

Joel Achenbach says don’t pack your bags for Mars yet. And Ken Chang says Elon just needs to figure out how to pay for it. Well, I think there are other issues as well. Meanwhile, the National Space Society is gung ho (as they should be, it’s much more in line with the group’s stated objective than anything NASA is doing).

[Update a couple minutes later]

Miri Kramer’s five takeaways.

[Update late morning]

McCandless link was missing, but I fixed it.

In response to Dreier:

[Update early afternoon]

Here’s Alan Boyle’s take.

And Elon answered yesterday’s question about how they get down to the surface:

[Update a while later]

Bill Nye doesn’t buy it. But the Planetary Society doesn’t want “filthy meatbag bodies” on Mars, anyway.

Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure that this announcement will re-energize the SJWs.

[Update a while later]

An amusing take over at Wait But Why. And one of the first, but certainly not last takes on planetary protection and the Outer Space Treaty.