The loss of the Meridian satellite caps a disastrous 12 months for Russia that has already seen it lose three navigation satellites, an advanced military satellite, a telecommunications satellite, a probe for Mars as well as the Progress.
“This again shows that the (Russian space) industry is in crisis,” admitted Vladimir Popovkin, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, in comments broadcast on state television. “It is deeply unpleasant.”
Acknowledging that the jobs of the Roscosmos leadership were at risk, he added: “I think it is possible that the organisational conclusions will be quite severe, right up to including myself.”
I don’t think that this is a problem that will be solved by changing out personnel. It’s just rearranging deck chairs.
I have some questions for Mitt Romney over at PJMedia. By the way, today is the forty-third anniversary of Apollo 8’s circuit of the moon, when we won the space race.
And it was (again) in the third stage, but it doesn’t seem to be common with the failure a few weeks ago. There is one common cause, though — it is a product of the Russian space program, which seems to be having ongoing problems, and Congress continues to fiddle with SLS while it burns, while underfunding the only program that can eliminate our dependence on it.
So come on NASA, wake up! Take the lid off and turn loose the human resources you already have in place. Most of these bright people came to NASA excited about the future, about going back to the Moon to stay and becoming a part of what could be another renaissance in space.
Building a great big rocket is not a necessary expenditure at this time. In fact, the budget that will be consumed by this big rocket will prevent NASA from any meaningful human exploration for at least the next decade and probably beyond. We don’t have to march in place while we wait for the powers that be to cancel it. Let’s be innovative; let’s wake up the sleeping giant and have at returning to the Moon right now.
While last week’s news about the new privately-funded air-launch system was exciting, many industry observers have been scratching their heads over aspects of it that don’t seem to quite add up, from both business and technical perspectives. Continue reading What Is Paul Allen’s Venture Really For?→
We drove up with Bill Simon yesterday, and he’s posted a bunch of pics on Picasa. It’s mostly pictures of the flight line with the canard fly-in, a lot of pictures of what’s happening at XCOR, and Burt Rutan’s “pyramid” house (which is currently being rented out).
On Fox News Sunday, Romney just attacked Newt again on lunar colonies. This is getting very annoying. Someone in Romney’s campaign or the man himself decided that bashing space is a good weapon against Gingrich. Newt should make him pay for it with a speech on the subject. I suppose I should be happy that he’s at least made it a campaign issue. It usually isn’t.
We’re going up to Plane Crazy in Mojave, to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the flight of the Voyager this week, and today’s 108th anniversary of the Wright Brothers first flight. I expect to see a lot of canards flying in for the event.