Category Archives: Space

Business, Education, General Science, Space

Alan Stern Speaks

Building a new community, something out of nothing. It is 1979 and the PC is about to appear in the next year.

When suborbital took off after X-Prize win, was all about tourism. Last year we saw at the first conference that research and education had come to the fore. A lot of surprise last year when over 250 people showed up at first conference, but now providers talking about this as primary market. Life science, earth science, space physics, astronomy and solar physics, lots of new ideas that we couldn’t have imagined a year ago, just heard an idea last night about how to detect extra-solar planets using suborbital flight. Will be able to get more useful microgravity time for many areas than on ISS. Last year over 80 presentations, with double that this year, three hundred pre-registered with a lot of walk-ins this morning. Last year SS2 had just rolled out, but this past year we’ve seen vehicles actually flying. Spaceport America dedicated in October (many here were there), SS2 is doing approach/landing tests, XCOR, Masten and Armadillo manifesting payloads, Blue Origin has announced their cabin payload system, NASTAR offereing regular REM training courses, CRuSR funded, Commercial Spaceflight Federation has new members, and new space policy that encourages commercialization. Flights will be beginning soon with SwRI and others, and next year we may start to see results at this conference.

George Nield of FAA up next.

Business, Economics, Space

Frank DiBello Speaks At The Suborbital Conference

Thanking SwRI and UCF for planning/hosting conference. Industry facing challenges, though most fun one for Florida. Excited about providing platforms for new areas of research. Investors still skeptical, know that space is good place for innovation, but can’t rely on government. Have to seek opportunities for industry-driven research. Celebrated ten years on orbit of permanent habitation of ISS and more research on Shuttle. Decades of good foundational research, but is it enough? We are believers in NASA and space, but we are the choir and have to not just listen to our own song. Not everyone understands potential in same terms we do, including the average citizen who sees lots of money that gets spent on infrastructure that gets cancelled. Need to expand research beyond peer review to involve industry in more concerted way. Florida ready to stand up to opportunity, will support community in very aggressive way. Have invested $30M in life-science center with hundred thousand square feet of space for animal care/integration for flight. Seen a significant increase in suborbital research interest, want to see a lot of coordination between suborbital and orbital research, from a hundred kilometers to Bigelow orbital facilities. Seeking collaboration on these activities and reaching out to industry for corporate dollars to broaden activities. Announcing that they will be releasing a program for matching funds for corporate investment in the next month. Will join with NIH and other sources for ways to find more bang for the buck. Welcome XCOR’s announcement of flight sales to SwRI. Looking forward to more such deals with Masten and others to operate out of Florida. Hope to spawn many new companies in research and applications, bring benefits back to earth and keep America a leader in space.

Business, Space

A Big Suborbital Deal

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XCOR and Southwest Research Institute have a major announcement today:

In a first for the reusable suborbital launch vehicle industry, XCOR Aerospace announced today that the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), a commercial entity, has purchased six suborbital flights to carry SwRI experiments as pathfinder missions for other SwRI suborbital clients. This is the first such contract SwRI has issued, and XCOR is proud to be chosen for this opportunity.

I hope it’s the first of many such deals, for XCOR and other providers.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space

A Call For Papers

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Sort of. I’ve set up a new section of Competitive Space for HSF myth busting, but I haven’t had time to flesh out the pages, so I’m calling for suggestions, or drafts, that can be improved over time. Ideally, it would be as a wiki, but I don’t have time to figure out how to set one up right now. Instead, I’ll incorporate comments into the pages as they come in. Credit will be provided to contributors.

[Update on Wednesday morning]

For those wondering about the 404, I’ve taken the page down, because it wasn’t getting enough input to clean things up. I’ll just have to work on it myself and then inaugurate it again.

Education, General Science, Media Criticism, Space, Space Science

The Misnamed Blog Carnival

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The latest Carnival of Space is up.

For anyone interested, I’ve never participated in this, primarily because in my experience, they’re not really carnivals of space — they’re carnivals of space science, a subject in which I have little more interest in than other kinds, except to the degree that it provides knowledge of how to develop and settle it. This is a specific instance of a more general irk — when many people learn that I’m an expert on space policy and technology, or I do a radio interview, they assume that I’m both an expert on and interested in space science and astronomy and (even more annoyingly) UFOs. It’s the same kind of general public level of (lack of) knowledge that leads to phrases such as “rocket scientist.”