I’m busy preparing my presentation for this afternoon at Space Access, but Ed Wright is announcing a space hacker workshop up at Ames Research Center in Mountain View on May 4-5 for people who want to learn how to build cubesats that can fly suborbitally on XCOR’s Lynx.
[Update Friday morning]
I originally wrote this post in Phoenix last Saturday, but didn’t actually publish it until yesterday, in case it had anyone scratching their heads.
Let’s hope this pans out. Among other things, it would solve Boeing’s problem. In fact, it might make electric airplanes possible, let alone cars. And some obvious space applications.
Jeff Foust has a piece up on the topic over at The Space Review.
Clark Lindsey has a report up.
That is to say, a righteous screed about suburbia and authenticity,and our intellectual betters (just ask them!) in the “studies” departments, by Lileks, unleashed by the not-to-be-lamented death of Paolo Solari.
You know, it strikes me that these snotty urbaphiles should love the idea of space colonies, at least in the regard of their being planned communities.
Boy, they just don’t seem to be able to catch a break. First, the sequester is preventing some big-name speakers from attending (and probably attendees as well), and now there’s four to eight inches of snow forecast for Tuesday. Guess I’d better pack some winter gear for my trip tomorrow.
A conference, in early May. What I find interesting is who is not on the schedule. Check out the “Z”s.
I may try to raise money for a publicity event there for my book.
Are we on the verge of a breakthrough? Let’s hope so, but I’ll believe it when I see it. It’s a game changer if it happens.
Larry Greenfield writes that those who prefer tyranny are winning. Unfortunately, like many conservatives, he doesn’t understand what’s going on with space policy:
American innovation both promoted and benefited from the space race. Today, Mr. Obama has lowered his sights, cut NASA spending, and opposed lunar exploration and continued human spaceflight.
This is simply untrue. The administration hasn’t cut NASA spending — the Congress has, on a bi-partisan basis. And while the administration did shut down the disastrous Constellation program whose stated purpose was to get us back to the moon, it had no real prospects of doing so. They have not “opposed continued human spaceflight.” They have repeatedly requested funding increases for commercial crew, the only NASA program with any chance of getting Americans to orbit on American rockets in this decade, and Congress has repeatedly cut the funding for it. One can argue about how effective the administration’s plans will be, but to say that they oppose human spaceflight is simply false as a matter of objective fact. In fact, in its actions of wasting billions on an underfunded, unneeded new rocket, and starving of funds the programs actually needed to get humans beyond earth orbit, one could say that it is Congress, including many of the Republicans within it, that is objectively opposing continued human spaceflight.