Is this the year the relationship sours? A good overview of the situation from Joe Pappalardo.
Category Archives: Space
Rocketman
A nice high, lonesome cover of the old song.
Ceres
…may have more fresh water than on all of earth. Seems in many ways more habitable than Mars.
Space Casualties
…are a necessary tragedy.
My column on this week’s anniversaries, in historical perspective. Actually, it’s a 500-work summary of the book.
[Update a few minutes later]
Right on cue, some idiot comes up in comments with the usual, “End human spaceflight. If you want science, send a robot.”
Of course, the word “science” didn’t appear in the piece.
Beings Making Space Livable
Clark Lindsey critiques Kenneth Chang’s article about the difficulties of living in space.
Virgin Galactic Motor Progress
They’re suddenly very forthcoming about progress.
As long as it’s not the motor that has to work this year.
Challenger Day
On the 28th anniversary of the event (and my birthday), Mollie Hemingway (to whom I gave a copy of the book at the Ricochet podcast Sunday night) has already read and reviewed it over at The Federalist. I would clarify this, though:
He suggests that NASA consider returning to an R&D function consistent with its original charter, otherwise getting out of the human spaceflight business entirely.
I don’t necessarily want them out of the human spaceflight business entirely, but I do want to get them out of now-mundane things like getting people (or anything) into orbit, and focus on the systems they need to go beyond. We have a commercial launch industry, and they should avail themselves of it instead of trying to compete with it.
[Afternoon update]
Molly has a post up at Ricochet, with a lot of discussion in comments.
[Bumped]
[Update a while later]
I was particularly gratified by this:
In any case, the book is just wonderful. I’m not someone who’s particularly interested in space exploration (though I have gone to many Space Shuttle launches and landings, so maybe I’m selling myself short). I’m definitely not someone with much knowledge of the space industry. And I wasn’t sure if this book would be so technical or wonkish as to be inaccessible. It’s not. It’s just a really engaging read with a compelling story about human nature, risk and reward.
That was what I was aiming for.
The Legacy Of Challenger
Here’s a piece I wrote four years ago, but it holds up pretty well today, I think.
The Other Sad Space Anniversary
Its not just Apollo 1. The Outer Space Treaty was opened for signing on the same day the astronauts died, forty-seven years ago yesterday. It was a major setback, in many ways, to opening up space. And for many, that was the idea.