As I just noted on Twitter, if Trump picks him, I’d seriously consider voting for him, not least because he would be a vice president more visionary about space than any in history. More anon.
[Update a while later]
Related non-space thoughts on a Gingrich pick from Jonah Goldberg.
Reading comments on Donald Robertson’s excellent disquisition on SLS in Space News, I don’t think anyone so encapsulates the insanity as Gary Church.
I should note that I found this link via the space-policy section of Reddit, which I’ve added to the blog roll.
Oh, and speaking of insanity on human spaceflight policy, I’d like to fisk this nonsense, but it’s long, and I just don’t have the gumption for it right now. I doubt if many have even read the stupid thing.
Louise Riofrio has a new Kickstarter project to highlight her cosmological theory.
Donald Robertson has an op-ed at Space News that reflects many of the themes of my monograph (which, by the way, I have updated with feedback from the past couple days).
Thoughts from Instapundit.
I should note that all of the technologies needed to get to Mars would also help a lot in improving our ability to herd asteroids.
[Update a few minutes later]
Thoughts from Oliver Morton from a year ago: Taking the hit.
I’d been aware of their plans for large-scale activity in cislunar space (and even talk about it in the monograph), but this is the first I’d heard that they are offering to purchase water in space, with a price for various locations.
[Thursday-morning update]
Sort of related: Seeing on Twitter that they’re laying people off today. Not sure what that means.
[Afternoon update]
Here’s the story at the Denver Post. Looks like about 10% company wide. A literal decimation.
Thoughts from Eric Berger, which I missed last week due to the funeral and the conference.
From my monograph:
NASA gave up on reusability a decade ago, when Mike Griffin selected Constellation, with its expendable launch systems, capsule, insertion stages and landers. It could in fact be argued that Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) gave up on it after it was given responsibility for it in the 1990s, which it turned into the failed X-33 program, which failure the center then used as an excuse to illogically claim that reusability didn’t work.
One tech I didn't recommend that NASA develop for Mars: Low-cost access to space. Private sector is already taking care of that.
— Apostle To Morons (@Rand_Simberg) June 29, 2016
Rediscovering them.
We’re not running out of anything on earth any time soon. That’s no reason not to open up off-planet resources, though.
This is good news. A new supply has been discovered, with potential for much more.
I’ve posted an update on my SLS Roadblock project, for those interested. The document itself can be found here. I’ll be interested in feedback.
[Tuesday-morning update]
Related: Growing a spacecraft for artificial gravity.
Half a million dollars. 0.03% of what we’re spending annually on SLS/Orion.
[Tuesday-morning update]
I’ve fixed a few problems with the document, including some missing figures, so you might want to refresh or download again.