Category Archives: Space

Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Orion

15 Comments

Official schedule just slipped to April 2023 for EM2. Like Constellation, it’s slipping more than a year per year. The program began in 2005. That would make it eighteen years.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Next President And Space

1 Comment

Another piece at The Space Review I missed last week was Jeff Foust’s assessment of the presidential field in the context of space policy.

Bottom line: None of them are going to be a JFK. Which isn’t surprising, because even JFK wasn’t the JFK of space-advocate fantasies. We live in a democratic Republic, and we’re not going to do Apollo again, to Mars or anywhere else. The best we can hope for is a president who recognizes the value of high-leverage space technology needed to reduce costs, and will fund those things necessary to support it during his or her term.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Space, Technology and Society

The Martian And Real Mars Missions

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I’m a little behind on my reading of The Space Review, but last week, Eric Sterner cautioned (as Keith Cowing has been doing repeatedly) space enthusiasts not to imagine that the movie will somehow sell NASA programs or budgets. Note the discussion about lack of redundancy in comments. Weir’s scenario assumes that NASA is going to do Apollo to Mars. The purpose of my Kickstarter project is to show why that shouldn’t and probably won’t ever happen. And there’s also this:

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Mark Whittington

9 Comments

Isn’t this cute? He still imagines we can (or should) do Apollo again.

[Update a while later]

Interesting timing on that Whittington piece. I just got off the phone with David Livingston, and one of the things I told his listeners was to stop trying to do Apollo again. Particularly because the Apollo they imagined, in which the nation was united behind a big goal in space, never happened.

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

Aerojet Rocketdyne ULA?

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This seems like a really weird story:

Rocket engine maker Aerojet Rocketdyne has offered to buy launch services provider United Launch Alliance from Lockheed Martin and Boeing for at least $2 billion, an industry source told SpaceNews Sept. 8.

The unsolicited bid is the latest twist in what has been a topsy-turvy year for ULA, the primary U.S. government launch services provider.

First, this begs the question of whether the parents would be willing to sell. I’m not sure they’d want to give up control, given the strategic issues involved. An unfettered ULA could be almost as disruptive to their government business (particularly SLS) as SpaceX has been.

Of course, a purchase by AJR would probably pretty effectively fetter them in other ways. The only reason for the company to do this is pure desperation. If Tory gets his way, and they build Vulcan/ACES, and end Atlas, Delta and Centaur, and phase out use of the RL-10 as well (which they’ve been wanting to do for years), AJR is pretty much out of business. But it would be acquiring and preserving launch systems that are already known to be uncompetitive on the future market, and it still needs money to build the AR-1, the RD-180 replacement. Congress seems willing to throw them money for that. But the problem is, even if the taxpayer pays for development, the vehicle itself will remain uncompetitive against SpaceX, since even with the development subsidy, manufacturing costs will be higher than the current price for the RD-180 from Russia.

Which makes this story at Engadget pretty funny:

United Launch Alliance is a joint-venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing that launches spy and navigation satellites for the Pentagon and Air Force. Now, the firm is the subject of a $2 billion bid from engine business Aerojet Rocketdyne, a company that’s been snubbed in its attempts to power the Atlas V. If the government’s shadowy army of intelligence analysts and accountants approve the deal, it could create a new aerospace behemoth that could leave Elon Musk shivering out in the cold.

Say what? If I were Elon, I’d be cheering this on, for reasons stated above. What I’d be worried about would be a counteroffer from Bezos, because this deal leaves Blue Origin out in the cold, in terms of suddenly having to develop their own rocket for the BE-4. I’ll bet he’s thinking about it. Of course, as I said above, this all presumes that Boeing and Lockmart are willing to sell. It was reportedly an unsolicited bid.

[Update a few minutes later]

Yes, as noted in comments, it’s a third higher than their market cap. And it’s just an opening bid, no way they’d get it for that price. It might be possible to do some kind of mezzanine M&A deal, but it sure looks like a bad bet to me.

[Mid-afternoon update]

Business, Space, Technology and Society

SpaceX Return To Flight

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Chris Bergin has an extensive story over at NASA Spaceflight.

It would be nice to see them get in four more flights this year, but it seems unlikely. In any event, if they start flying again in November, that would be a pretty fast recovery, in historical terms with other launch failures, particularly with a relatively new vehicle.

[Update a few minutes later]

And here’s a story about Lee Rosen’s announcement in Pasadena that Falcon Heavy will debut this spring.

[Updatea while later]

Bad second link. Fixed now, sorry.

Economics, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Why We Can’t Go To Mars

28 Comments

Yet…

Stephen Fleming gave a talk on that subject at Dragoncon this weekend (I should go some time). I haven’t looked at them yet, but his slides are on line, and I suspect there’s some good input to the Kickstarter there.

[Update a few minutes later]

Still haven’t been through slides, but I’m amused to see that he stole my graphical book-cover them in the very first one.

[Reading through]

I’d note that in his slides on the “Martian Defense Grid,” someone on the Mars panel at the AIAA meeting last week called Mars our “Jamestown.” High casualties to initial pioneers.

[Update a few more minutes later]

I wish we could show those charts of the unknown shape of the health/gravity curves to Congress. It makes a powerful case for a gravity lab, but only to people who actually give a damn about Mars. Actually, someone should show them to Elon.