Trying to break in to a broken Pentagon procurement system.
[Tuesday update]
Speaking of the broken Pentagon procurement system, here’s an interesting take on it from AvWeek.
[Bumped]
Trying to break in to a broken Pentagon procurement system.
[Tuesday update]
Speaking of the broken Pentagon procurement system, here’s an interesting take on it from AvWeek.
[Bumped]
Thirteen things to do with it:
Technically we don’t need water in space for drinking because we can recycle our pee. If you’re not really fond of that idea, then you must be very fond of space mining, because otherwise recycled pee is on the menu. It’s really not so bad to drink recycled pee. Here on Earth you do it all the time. It’s just not as easy on a tiny spaceship where the proximity of the recycling equipment forces you to remember where your beverage came from. And recycling on such a small scale as a spaceship is expensive and tricky. Giant spaceships like Earth are better at that stuff. Anyhow, without space mining, you’ll be drinking lots of pee. If on the other hand you have lots of water from mining in space, then your pee can be dumped overboard to make miniature yellow comets in orbit around the sun. Consider it a form of art. So it’s your choice: making space art, or drinking pee.
News you can use.
By the way, I’ve added Phil’s blog to the blogroll.
Also, related: Chris Lewicki talks about space-based propellants.
Jeff Foust reports on the NRC report, and reactions to it.
As I tweeted last week, as both a space enthusiast and a taxpayer, I don’t want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to send a few civil servants to Mars decades from now. Call me completely uninspired.
Why it’s self defeating.
At best, it’s a delaying tactic.
[Update a while later, about an hour before my appearance on The Space Show]
Sam’s thesis is a matter of some dispute. I suspect it will be addressed in comments over there.
I’ll be on this afternoon from 2-3:30 PM PDT, to discuss the book in the context of current events with Russia, commercial crew and congress.
Eric Berger has the latest on the attempt to cripple commercial crew.
[Update a few minuts later]
Florida Today has the story as well.
Ed Driscoll interviewed me the other day. The podcast and a transcript are up now.
OK, we lost the fight in committee, but now the bill goes to the full Senate. As noted here, individual senators actually can throw a wrench in the works, because there is a preference for unanimous consent. So now you don’t have to have a senator on the committee to fight the good fight — anyone with a senator or two (that is, any USian voter) can call one or both of them and try to fix this before the floor vote.
Is this the future?
Who knows?
Go read this action alert, and call your senator if they’re on the appropriations committee.