Senator Hutchison can’t retire soon enough for me. As a commenter notes, there’s nothing in her press release about actually accomplishing anything in space. It’s all about the jobs.
Category Archives: Space
The Bloody Road To Safety
Bill Whittle’s latest Firewall is up. Yours truly is paraphrased.
SpaceX At The LA Times
There’s a front-page story today. As I noted in a comment there, I found the final sentence interesting:
The rocket has just two successful test launches.
While true, there are other ways to phrase it. They could have left out the “just,” which implies that the number is both low, and bad. There is also an implication that there have been unsuccessful launches. It would have been just as accurate, and more favorable to the company, to write, “The rocket has had two successful launches, with no failures.” They could have even pointed out that the capsule performed successfully on its first and only flight.
What’s In A Name
Some thoughts on the nautical origins of the symbolism of the Space Shuttle. I agree with some commenters, though — a true space ship would never enter the atmosphere. And it’s where NASA’s focus should be, not on a giant rocket to nowhere.
Space Lunacy On The Left
Tea Party in Space on Hatewatch? Really?
Rachel Maddow, Space Policy Analyst
I’m not sure what she’s saying here:
We didn’t put a man on the moon because some company thought they might be able to make a profit doing it. It takes vision to involve the common good of the American people without regard for profit. If you’re charting a course for this country and your big idea is “NO WE CAN’T”, then I don’t want you leading this country.
No, Rachel, we put a man on the moon because we wanted to show that a democratic socialist space program was superior to a totalitarian socialist space program. If we’d done it for profit, it would have taken a lot longer, but we’d still be doing it.
Space Elevator Update
Here’s a report from the conference. There are still a lot of issues to work out. The smart money is on (reusable) rockets, in the near term, I think.
TPIS In The News
Doug Mohney has noticed that Tea Party in Space has outed Orrin Hatch and other ATK senators.
The Tea Party In Space
…gets noticed by the “progressives.” The amount of idiocy and ignorance in the comments is gobsmacking.
Interesting Space Tweets
Ed Ellegood is covering a Space Club speech by Bill Posey:
Rep. Posey said commercial space providers are our best hope for getting U.S. astronauts back into orbit.
Rep. Posey again spoke of space as a military “high ground” that the U.S. seems to be giving up to adversaries in China and Russia.
Overheard: Sen. Mikulski (D-MD) wants to cut NASA’s commercial spaceflight investments in order to save the Webb Telescope.
Overheard: Sen. Mikulski, meanwhile, is supporting an earmark to develop a processing facility at Wallops for use by Orbital’s Taurus-2.
There’s going to be an ugly battle over NASA appropriations in the Senate this fall.