I disagree with this. He seems to be operating under the delusion that NASA is ever going to get anyone to Mars, and seemingly ignores the people with money who are working to do so.
Category Archives: Space
Artificial Intelligence
Our immortality, or our extinction?
I think that’s a matter of how you define “us.”
Lunar Property Rights
The FAA is taking the first step toward granting them (in a sense). It doesn’t say how big an exclusion zone would be provided. But this is unprecedented. I assume this topic will come up at the conference tomorrow or Thursday.
ESA
Can it survive without a radical restructuring?
Nope. SpaceX is disrupting space programs all over the world.
Why Go To Mars And Other Places
I missed linking this article at The Space Review by John Strickland.
The real problem with space policy is not that we can’t decide where to go, but that we can’t decide why.
A Space-Based Internet
…why the time seems right.
The Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel Report
This year’s version is out.
I haven’t read yet, but I’m sure I will. It will be useful fodder for a new edition of the book. Note that while it criticizes Commercial Crew for a lack of transparency, SLS/Orion come in for more substantive criticism from a safety standpoint.
Space Anniversaries
Yesterday was the 48th anniversary of the loss of three astronauts on the launch pad, in preparation for the Apollo missions. A child of the space age, I remember it particularly well, because it occurred the day before my twelth birthday. A little over nineteen years later, on my actual birthday, Challenger was lost. I recollected it on the sixteenth anniversary of the event.
Today is the twenty-ninth anniversary of that tragedy, and while I commemorate it, I also celebrate the completion of my sixtieth trip around the sun, over eight thousand miles from home. I’m in Israel to attend a conference named after Ilan Ramon, an Israeli hero who died a dozen years ago on February 1st, when Columbia disintegrated in the skies over east Texas. That anniversary coming up with Sunday, by which time I’ll be home, if all goes according to plan, to celebrate with friends and family, but also grieve for the losses. Yet as I point out in my book, such losses are inevitable, and necessary, perhaps even at a faster rate than once per generation, if we wish to accomplish much greater things than we have in space over the past six decades since my birth.
Reusing Falcon Heavy
A nice animation, but I question the economics of bringing all three cores back to the pad. That has to be big performance hit, particularly on the center one. That one might continue to be barged, or at least there would be trades for each flight, depending on customer needs.
Swiss Space Systems
A lot of info on their plans. You know, the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft was modified with twin tails for a reason. Hope that vehicle doesn’t clip the vertical stabilizer.