Articles by a human, and an AI, at Reason. That picture is wild, and bears no resemblance to SLS/Orion.
Category Archives: Space
Polaris Dawn
Eric Berger has the story on the upcoming flight.
[update a while later]
As per usual, many of the comments are idiotic hating on billionaires.
Starliner
With the upcoming launch today, Eric Berger writes that the surprise is not that it took so long, but that it happened at all.
Has Boeing done anything right, or well recently?
[Update a few minutes later]
Reading in the article about the “incident” at White Sands, I recall that I was sitting next to Chris Ferguson at an Apollo 49th-anniversary dinner at KSC a month or so afterward, and I said something like “I heard you had a little oopsie at WSMR.” He said, “You’re not supposed to know about that.” I’m sure that he wished that I (and others) didn’t know about that.
Dick Rutan
RIP.
He was the test pilot for XCOR’s rocket planes. It’s sad that he (nor anyone else) ever got to fly the Lynx.
Starship Update
What’s new on ship 30 (and possibly 29 as well).
[Thursday-morning update]
Meanwhile, over at NASA, the agency seems peeved at its Inspector General, as Artemis delays continue to seem inevitable.
There was never any prospect of a serious human lunar program from NASA until it is allowed to end its dependence on SLS/Orion.
The Orion Heat Shield
NASA still doesn’t understand the root cause.
Once SpaceX works out the heat shield problems on Starship, it won’t really matter.
Dealing With China In Space
Greg Autry discusses his new book (with Peter Navarro).
A Propellantless Drive?
As usual, it’s unlikely that this will pan out, but it’s certainly worthy of further investigation.
Lunar Elon
He seems to be much more ambitious than Congress or NASA is. If this happens, it will become apparent to all how absurd and pointless SLS/Orion are.
The Space Regulation Mess
Jeff Foust has a good description of the current state of play.
I think that this is bogus: ““The FAA, Department of Transportation, has been doing human spaceflight safety for many years…”
The FAA has never been responsible for human-spaceflight safety. In
fact, under the learning period, it has no legislative authority to do so. It has never done mission assurance for either satellites or participants. Does Rich DalBello really subscribe to this statement?
It also begs the question that any federal agency should be responsible for the safety of commercial spaceflight participants, either on the way to orbit, on the way back, or in space. The debate we should be having is not which agency, but whether the federal government should have responsibility at all at this point in time. I don’t see how Article VI requires it. I’m tempted to write an op-ed.