Doug Messier analyzes.
Though I’d like to be, it’s hard to be optimistic about Virgin getting to space this year.
Category Archives: Space
Mars Or Bust
NPR has a story on various peoples’ plans, including Mars One.
ASAP And My Book
Over at Space Politics, Jeff Foust follows up on his book review from yesterday.
No, Vance Brand
Safety should not be NASA’s highest priority. That way lies stagnation.
[Update a few minutes later]
Hey, Vance, was safety “the highest priority” for Apollo 8?
The Normal Healthy Paranoia
…of the launch business.
SpaceX has gone through quite a learning process in the past decade, and now they’re poised to take over the industry.
Safe Is Not An Option
Jeff Foust has a review of the book (in the context of last week’s release of the 2013 ASAP report, which I’ve been meaning to comment on), over at The Space Review.
[Update a while later]
And of course the server at The Space Review would go down the day that he reviews my book. I must have crashed it with my link. 😉
Last Week’s Forgotten Anniversary
Jeff Foust has a round up of the scant commentary on the 10th anniversary of Bush’s VSE announcement, including a link to my USA Today piece.
And no, the problem with Constellation was not that it was underfunded. It simply cost more than the planned budgets. Mike hoped that once it was a fait accompli, he’d just get the extra money. It didn’t work out that well.
[Update in the afternoon]
I haven’t read it in detail, but Stephen C. Smith has a lengthy history.
SLS
NASA doesn’t plan to use it very much. This isn’t really news, but it’s nice to see them point out the implications:
Given the SLS Block 1 launch processing manifest (4-5 years with little to no activities), there is a potential of not having sufficiently trained personnel. Issue – Yellow (May require personnel with advanced skills not readily available).
As I write in the book, even ignoring the cost implications:
From a safety standpoint, it means that its operating tempo will be far too slow, and its flights too infrequent, to safely and reliably operate the system. The launch crews will be sitting around for months with little to do, and by the time the next launch occurs they’ll have forgotten how to do it, if they haven’t left from sheer boredom to seek another job.
What a mess.
Rosetta
…has woken up:
SIGNAL RECEIVED #AOS European Space Agency has reestablished contact with @ESA_Rosetta 807 million km from Earth #Rosetta
— ESA Operations (@esaoperations) January 20, 2014
Congratulations to ESA. I think people were getting nervous in mission control.
Jobs And Technology
A good survey at The Economist on the coming tsunami on unskilled labor, for which no government is prepared. They’re right that the most important thing is to reform K through post-grad education, root and branch, but there are a lot of entrenched interests that will continue to fight that.