Some thoughts from Sam Dinkin over at The Space Review, with a plug for the Kickstarter, which has slowed since the burst last week. About half way to the goal, with a little over half the time left. Spread the word, at Facebook and other places, if you haven’t already.
Category Archives: Space
Congress Fiddles With Monster Rockets
…while human spaceflight burns. My latest thoughts on our Congressional space-policy follies, over at PJMedia.
[Afternoon update]
As usual with space pieces, the comments over there are painfully ignorant.
Paul Ehrlich
Razid Khan has a defense of him. But not a very robust one. As I noted to Razid on Twitter, while we are certainly capable of extincting ourselves, it won’t be from resource depletion.
The Power Of Instapundit
His link to the Kickstarter today (plus his generous contribution) put me almost a third of the way to the goal.
OK, well, not sure that Jeff Garzik’s $1000 contribution was a result of that link, but thanks! I’ll try to give money’s worth.
[Friday-morning update]
Got my first $500 contributors overnight, and almost halfway to the goal.
[Afternoon update]
Past the halfway mark, with eleven days to go.
To Mars
This effort would require four launches of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket, which is currently in development and is scheduled to make its maiden flight in 2018.
The purpose of my Kickstarter is to show how it could be done, faster, cheaper, with more people.
A New Private Launch Industry
In Japan? The Diet is going to take up a Japanese version of the Commercial Space Launch Act.
The NASA Budget Bill
…passes the House.
Unsurprisingly, Marcia Smith has the story. Probably more thoughts after I read it myself. But this concluding statement is evergreen: “A long and difficult appropriations seasons seems inevitable.”
Commercial Crew Emergency
Contact your representative tonight or early tomorrow and tell them to support full funding for Commercial Crew. The House is going to be voting on the appropriations budget.
Kickstarter Progress
Well, that was a nice bump. John Walker just kicked in a grand. That puts me over 10% of the goal on the first full day. Not sure how many more of those I’ll get, though.
[Update a while later]
I’ve gotten a couple emails wondering if there’s some way to contribute anonymously. Unfortunately, I don’t think Kickstarter allows that. I can understand how there would be a lot of people who’d like to support it, but would suffer repercussions if they did so publicly. However, if I get funded, I’d be happy to take more money under the table for equivalent rewards, and just keep track of it myself, instead of Kickstarter. That would have the additional advantage of eliminating the take from the middle man (7-8%).
A “Design Peculiarity”
That’s an…interesting phrase for the cause of the Progress mission failure last month. Doesn’t that sort of imply a need for a redesign?