This article at The Space Review seems profoundly ignorant of economics and history, including the history of the Moon Treaty, because that basically seems to be what he’s proposing.
Category Archives: Space
Why Settle Space?
Dale Skran critiques a strawmannish article from a few days ago, so I don’t have to.
Off To DC
I got up at 3 AM to catch a 5 AM flight from LAX to DCA via ORD. Heading there for the FAA-AST Space Transportation Conference tomorrow. Earliest flight I’ve ever taken from there, I think. I had TSA pre-check, but the line wasn’t open yet, so I had to do the whole drill. The American terminal is pretty dead at 4 AM. Anyway, I’m in a flying chair somewhere over the plains with Internet. It almost feels like the 21st century.
Warning to denizens of the Beltway: I am on my way. Hide the women and liquor.
— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) January 31, 2016
SLS/Orion Status
The vast waste of money continues.
Resiliency In Milspace
I haven’t read the whole thing, but there’s a new white paper out about it.
Thirty Years On
This is the thirty first year my birthday has been marred by the event. Leroy Chiao thinks that we shouldn’t have retired the Shuttle, but he assumes we did it for safety reasons. As I note in the book, Shuttle was retired because it cost too much, and the fleet had gotten too small to sustain it properly.
[Update a while later]
My thoughts on the anniversary, and lessons not learned, over at USA Today.
[Update a few minutes later]
Clark Lindsey has a link roundup on the anniversaries.
[Update a while later\
Doug Messier has some thoughts, and a warning to the space upstarts.
Ending Apollo To Mars
I couldn’t give a heads up, because they only want people on the approved list to call in, but I was the speaker for today’s FISO talk. The audio and PDF are up now.
McCain’s Folly
He had a hearing this morning to try to restrict RD-180 use again. Michael Listner has the story.
I don’t understand why Kevin McCarthy is going along with this nonsense.
Remembrance
In each of the accidents there were people who believed that the programs were proceeding into unsafe territory. These people tried with varying degrees of success to alert the management of their concerns. In some cases, they fell silent quickly. In other cases, they were overruled and gave up. Later, in all three of the accidents, the top leaders unanimously said ‘we didn’t know anybody was concerned’.
The lesson to take away here is not to give up. If it is unsafe say so. If overruled, appeal. If denied appeal, make your case to the highest level manager you can find. Do not give up until you have been heard at the very top.
Because you might be the only one that sees what no one else can.
From someone who should know.
[Update a while later]
Here’s a nice piece from Nadia Drake.
Planet Nine
Is it a death threat?
I'll get more concerned if/when it turns out to actually exist. https://t.co/TEgifsZCF4
— SafeNotAnOption (@SafeNotAnOption) January 26, 2016