Category Archives: Space

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Gerry Griffin

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…proposes a giant leap for all mankind:

Mr. Griffin reminds us that space is a dangerous business. One of his biggest jobs at NASA was to manage the risk in a reasonable way. Risk can never be taken to zero; that would mean humans do nothing. Astronauts have died in space, but to put this in context, people in the aerospace community have also been killed on the highway on their way to work. Transportation, in any form, does not currently have zero risk. Safety is important. An early failure, such as the Apollo Launch pad fire, would be a problem for commercial viability. Design will require a reasonable middle ground with some redundancy, but not to the point of adding massive weight or prohibitive costs. Technology is so much better today and designers have fifty years of operating history to guide them. The physical demands of working in space are so intense that a momentary distraction could prove fatal. However, more is known about human error factors and training could better manage those.

Gee, someone should write a book about that. Yes, I know, Real Soon Now. Had a last-minute glitch, but it’s happening this month.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

A Deadly Accident In Space

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There will be one:

You might depart the theater after Gravity with mixed emotions about going to space yourself. Cuaron’s tracking shots and sweeping vistas of the blue marble below evoke a sort of spiritual response, especially in the spaces between suspense when the movie gets quiet. Of course, the Bullock and Clooney spend much of the film spinning and flailing in mortal danger, dodging hunks of metal that become ballistic missiles at orbital speed. Jones sees Gravity as appearing amid a rising wave of interest in space brought on by the emerging private space industry, and that’s a hopeful trend. But humanity has to be realistic about risk assessment, and ready for the high drama of trying to rescue space travelers after a disaster in orbit. Perhaps when space travel becomes common, and not simply the domain of professional astronauts, we’ll treat space disasters like plane crashes—tragedies that can be made extremely uncommon, but never eliminated. And that will be a good thing.

Yes. That’s the fundamental premise of my book.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space

Houston, We Have A Market

Greg Autry writes about the success of COTS:

When it comes to the International Space Station resupply business, these firms are competing with governmental operations from Russia and Japan. Congressional defenders of the old-school government-operated space service are curiously disdainful of American entrepreneurship and eagerly point out how these foreign solutions can fill our needs while we compel NASA to build a Space Shuttle replacement. What these critics miss, however, is that every dollar going to one of our domestic firms stays in the U.S., creates serious jobs, and makes the most of America’s entrepreneurial advantages. Funding this investment in America’s future follows in the steps of successful Federal investment in jumpstarting industries that have included the transcontinental railroad, the Internet, and GPS. Such visionary investments have produced big economic returns that increased government revenues for decades.

They don’t care. It’s all about the pork.