Lou Friedman, like most sensible people, wonders why the Congress is insisting that NASA waste billions on a heavy lifter with no payloads. Of course, the real problem being solved here is job losses, nothing else.
Category Archives: Space
The Business Case For Iridium Servicing
Jon Goff has a very interesting post about the potential for justifying the private development of a LEO tug.
This is a key element of a LEO (and cis-lunar) infrastructure that NASA has ignored ever since the ignominious end of the disastrous Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) program in the early nineties (another wonder of management from Marshall). We should have had one decades ago, but it looks like the private sector is going to have to make it happen. Once in existence, it has a number of other useful (and money making) applications, if NASA can start to be a good customer.
Space Cheese
…and other breakthroughs. Katherine Mangu-Ward reports on last week’s SpaceX success. Yours truly is cited. FWIW.
[Update a while later]
107 Since Kitty Hawk
The Wrights first flew a controlled heavier-than-aircraft over a century ago, on this date in 1903. On the hundredth anniversary, I wrote three articles that are still worth reading if you haven’t, or rereading if you have. They contain a lot of lessons for spaceflight development.
[Update a couple minutes later]
I notice that the TCS Daily link from the old Instapundit post is busted. Here‘s another one.
On The Anniversary Of The First Tea Party
The Tea Partiers have won a great victory:
Speaking now on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) says he is “sorry and disappointed” to announce that he does not have the votes for the omnibus spending package. Instead, he will work with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) to draft a temporary continuing resolution to fund the government into early next year.
Reid says nine Republican senators approached him today to tell him that while they would like to see the bill passed, they could not vote for it. He did not reveal the names of the nine. A top Senate source tells National Review Online that “it looks like Harry Reid buckled under the threat of Republicans reading [the bill] aloud.”
Mr. Smith has come to Washington, again.
[Update a couple minutes later]
More links from Instapundit. “Brave Sir Harry Ran Away.”
Heh.
[Update a minute or two later]
I should note that I haven’t had much to say about the horrible NASA appropriations in this bill (three billion dollars for SLS and MPCV — how in the world would they have sensibly spent $1.8B on a heavy lifter in 2011, with only nine months left in the fiscal year?), because I wanted to wait and see if it was actually going to pass.
I think that we will be on continuing resolutions as far as the eye can see, at this point, or at least until 2013, and the big battles over the NASA budget will be what goes into rescission bills, starting early next year. The job of people who really want to see progress in space is to make sure that the SLS is on the top of the chopping block, at least restricting it to studies in the next couple years instead of pouring hundreds of millions into obsolete technologies.
You heard it here first.
The Year In Commercial Spaceflight
I’m doing a piece for Popular Mechanics on the topic. These seem like the key events of the year. Did I miss any? Did Armadillo do anything interesting?
SpaceShipTwo Drop Test
First Flight Of Falcon 9
First Flight Of Dragon
Spaceport Curacao
Bigelow Coming Out
Boeing CST-100
Masten Restart
A Sad Anniversary
I think that today is the thirty-eighth anniversary of the day that Gene Cernan climbed back into the LEM and headed off to lunar orbit with Jack Schmitt to meet up with the command module for the trip back to earth (perhaps depending on what time zone you use). Humans haven’t walked on the moon since, for many reasons, but foremost because too many people think that the only way to return was the way we went the first time, with massive government expenditures and a big rocket. This false perception has held us back for almost four decades now.
Year Of The Dragon Permalink
It’s been republished over at Space Daily.
An Internet First
I rarely link to Mark Whittington’s site, but I think that this is history making. He has finally revealed one of his previously imaginary friends in his “Internet Rocketeer’s Club.” In this case, finally, it’s not imaginary.
I don’t think I really deserve the honor though, unlike Mark, I do know something about rocketry, having actually done it for a living. I also know about launch costs, economics, policy, politics, history, grammar, spelling, HTML, and many other things of which Mark seems innocent. But I hope I’ll get a secret decoder ring soon.
More Dragon Commentary
…from Henry Spencer. With some Mercury history, for the NASA worshipers.