This guy’s so determined he’s willing to leave his wife and four kids.
Category Archives: Space
NASA’s 2004 Budget
Did you know that it was eighty-six billion dollars? The National Journal thinks it was.
Layers and layers of fact checkers.
Bob Sackheim
…has died.
I met him a couple times, but didn’t really know him well. But the man is a propulsion legend.
NASA’s Budget
Jeff Foust has the details.
As usual, SLS/Orion is funded above the request, and Commercial Crew below it. And technology takes it in the shorts yet again. But at least they didn’t underfund Commercial Crew as much as they have in the past. It’s only about a hundred-twenty-five million less than the $800M+ request. It apparently also contains a three-year extension on launch indemnification.
Note that Congress is demanding a cost-benefit analysis for Commercial Crew, but (as Clark Lindsey notes) not one for the wasteful $3B that’s going to SLS/Orion.
A “Zero-Gravity Space Chamber”
No, New York Post, there’s no such thing. If they shot her b00bs in weightlessness, it was probably in a parabolic aircraft.
The Aldridge Commission
In researching a piece on tomorrow’s VSE anniversary, I just started to reread the commission report. You know what isn’t mentioned in the Executive Summary of recommendations? Heavy lift.
The Military Space Program
Should it be taken over by the Navy? Space is more like the sea than like the air, and I argue in my book that a US Space Guard would be a better organization for many things currently being done (or neglected) by NASA, the Air Force and the FAA.
Off To Mojave
Hoping to get up there and see SS2 in flight.
[Update mid-afternoon]
OK, I’m back. Got to the flight line a few minutes before the drop. I took some pictures, but I’m sure that Virgin’s are better. I’ll look at them and see if I have anything worth posting, but I didn’t have a lot of zoom on the camera.
On a related note, I stopped over at XCOR and fulfilled some of the last of my Kickstarter obligations, where it was gently pointed out to me that I’d deployed some sloppy wording in the section on Lynx, unintentionally implying that it doesn’t have engine-out capability at takeoff. I meant to say loss of thrust, not premature engine termination.
It’s quite annoying to me, given how much effort and time I spent to get it right. Most people won’t notice it, but to me it’s like a mountain, a VAST BOWL OF PUS. Now people will be saying, “Gee, what else did he screw up?”
So if you don’t hear from me after this, it will be because I went down the local SCA chapter to borrow a sword with which to ritually liberate my viscera.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here are a couple of nice shots, courtesy of Doug Messier.
Cygnus Is In Orbit
It’s been a good week for launches so far, with Falcon 9, the Indian GSLV, and now a third successful flight of Antares.
NASA’s Unneeded Test Stand
Here’s a story on the Stennis boondoggle, with a quote on pork from Yours Truly.