Today’s the forty-second anniversary of the first moon landing. Bill Simon and I discussed the ceremony that we developed to commemorate it over on The Space Show on Monday. Clark Lindsey has some more related links.
Category Archives: Space
What Will They Find?
POGO has filed a FOIA on NASA’s heavy-lift program.
[Update a few minutes later]
Here’s a story on the SLS by NPR. I found this comment by Bill Nelson interesting:
Congress recently told NASA to build that system by 2016, and to use existing industry contracts as much as possible. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat who flew on space shuttle Columbia, thinks building the big new rocket is what NASA needs to do, no matter where it’s going next.
“Maybe it’s going to be an asteroid, as the president suggested, for 2025,” Nelson says. “It’s possible we may go back to the moon. There may be other destinations. All of these are going to develop as we develop technology. But the first thing we have to have is a big rocket that can get all of these different components and refueling up into Earth orbit.”
So, my question is, Senator, if we’re going to be refueling in earth orbit, why do we need the big rocket? Fuel can go up on small rockets.
Space Thoughts At PJM
I have a piece up today on the end of the Shuttle (and big-government-space) era. Unfortunately, so does Christian Adams. Every paragraph of it seems to have been posted from an alternate reality. I may fisk it later, if no one else does.
[Mid-morning update]
Clark Lindsey has responded to Adams’ piece in comments over there.
A Bleg To AIAA Members Who May Be Readers
I haven’t been a member in many years (I don’t know when I dropped, but it was probably in the late eighties) because for a long time I’ve viewed them as either part of the problem, or irrelevant (for instance, Aerospace America just seemed to be a font of conventional industry wisdom). But they continue to bug me to reup, and I’m thinking that it might actually be useful for me to do so, but if so, at this point in my career, I would only do so as a fairly senior type, for which one has to have sponsorship (according to my understanding). Is there anyone out there that would like to take this on?
Forty-Two Years Ago
Hard to believe it’s been that long (doesn’t seem that long ago that I attended a celebration in Hollywood thrown by Ron Howard for the quarter-century anniversary), but today is the anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11. Wednesday is Evoloterra, so it’s a good time to plan a get together with family and friends to celebrate. Bill Simon and I, the principal authors of the ceremony, will be discussing it on The Space Show on Monday afternoon.
Jerry Pournelle
…is interviewed by Instapundit.
A couple points. The SRBs are more than two pieces — they consist of seven segments. And I think that American entrepreneurs/adventurers will be back on the moon before the Chinese are.
[Update early afternoon]
Here’s the Youtube version for those who don’t subscribe to Pajamas TV.
An Agency That Has Too Much Money
Res ipsa loquitur.
This isn’t going to be helpful in NASA budget discussions going forward.
[Update the next morning]
The Adaptive Curmudgeon is teed off at NASA. I think he’s got the wrong culprit, though — the problem is really on Capitol Hill. If Congress wanted NASA to do anything different, it would give them different direction and funding.
On The Chopping Block
(My CEI colleague) Iain Murray says that part of a budget deal should be to eliminate the Department of Commerce.
It’s not actually the first one I’d go after (I’d get rid of e.g., Education, Labor and Energy first), but I understand the potential appeal. But it does serve many necessary functions that would have to be redistributed elsewhere. For instance, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) wouldn’t find a comfortable home in the State Department, nor would NOAA or the weather service. Granted, the latter is kind of a mess right now, in terms of not getting needed new satellites up (particularly now that we’re headed into the heart of hurricane season), though it’s not clear whether that’s NOAA’s fault, or NASA’s, which actually manages the development of the satellites. Also, giving over the commercial export list to the State Department could make ITAR even more of a disaster than it already is. It would also raise the issue of finding a new home for the Coast Guard (and the Space Guard, if we ever get one).
There is a reason that Commerce has been around a lot longer than the three agencies I mention above as better targets — if it didn’t exist, we’d probably have to invent it in some form. And unlike education, energy, or labor, we actually do have a Commerce Clause in the Constitution (flawed and overstretched though its interpretation has become).
Was The Shuttle Worth It?
Thoughts on MSNBC from Dave Brody.
On The Radio
I’m going to be on The American Conservative Radio Show tonight, at 10 PM EDT, talking space policy. Here’s a link for those who want to listen in.