For its recognition by Popular Science. Xombie is a lot better pick than that hilariously (yet sadly) idiotic Time pick a couple years ago.
[Update a few minutes later]
Similar congratulations to SpaceX, for the Falcon 9 selection.
Category Archives: Space
The Last Straw For Bolden?
The new congress isn’t likely to view this very favorably. He seems to be merely rearranging deck chairs, and Scolese remains in charge.
Wise Up, Conservatives
Time to realize that the Apollo era is over. Iain Murray and I have a piece up at The American Spectator in response to that dumb blog post at Forbes last week. Many of the comments seem to utterly miss the point, though. And I have to say, I hadn’t previously been aware that I was a “committed leftist.” Though if I were a leftist, committing me would probably be the appropriate thing to do.
[Late morning update]
I am reliably informed that Loren Thompson, the guy who wrote that thing at Forbes, is bought and paid for by Lockmart. I would have mentioned that in the AmSpec piece had I known earlier.
And Mark Whittington has a hilarious comment, though (as always) completely inadvertently.
About That “Missile” Off The Coast
I’ve gotten requests in comments and email for my thoughts, but I really don’t know much more than anyone else. I didn’t see it myself, but this explanation looks like the most likely one to me. Fortunately, it’s also the most benign one. I do think it’s a good reminder, though, that we need to get serious about missile defense.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Here’s a lengthy disquisition on the contrail theory.
A One-Paragraph Spec
Thoughts on NASA procurement problems over at Space News:
To an outsider, it seems self-evident that NASA’s procurement process is the thing that is broken, or we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Look at Falcon 9, from drawing board to successful first flight in much less than 10 years, and an expenditure on the order of half a billion dollars, and compare that with Ares 1, and tell me NASA still knows how to run programs. Compare it further with the program requirements documents for Mercury and Gemini, highly successful programs back when we knew a lot less about spaceflight than we do today.
There’s no way Ares 1 and the Orion crew capsule should have cost anywhere near what they were costing, or take anything like as much time as they were taking, to get up and fly. Whether the problem lies within NASA, or with the government procurement rules within which NASA is constrained to operate, is a question that needs answering. But the end result is the same: another decade lost, and American astronauts sitting by the side of the road with their thumbs out, waiting for the next Soyuz launch.
Arguably our most successful manned program, the Gemini program, was conducted from start to finish in less than five years. It cost (including 10 crewed flights) somewhere between $5 billion and $7 billion adjusted for inflation — less than we have spent on Constellation/Ares without even making it to our first orbital test flight. Gemini did everything we need from a crewed spacecraft, at least until we get out of cislunar space. Put a beefed-up heat shield on it and it could have gone to the Moon, and there were some studies for that. That’s what we did when the U.S. had a cumulative total experience in manned spaceflight of three man-days — not man-years, not even man-months.
I am not an engineer. My degrees are in history and business. If I am anything, I am a historian. So, as a historian, I ask: What’s so hard about replicating this level of capability, with technology that’s 40 years more mature?
Well, as another (amateur) historian, I’ll answer the question. That was then, this is now. In the sixties, actually accomplishing things in space was important, because we were in a race with the Soviets. Today, developing useful space hardware isn’t important. Maintaining jobs in certain congressional districts is.
Time For Republicans To Act Like Conservatives
…when it comes to space. My thoughts over at PJM.
Space Travel
Some vintage ideas.
More Dumb Space Commentary
Over at Forbes. I’m going to see if I can find a way to rebut it there.
Variable-Gravity Research
Jon Goff has some interesting thoughts, spurred by a discussion from Joe Carroll last weekend at the Space Manufacturing Conference.
Great Election News For Space
Jim Oberstar has lost. Not just lost his chairmanship of the House committee that oversees the FAA, but he’s completely gone from Congress.
What does this mean? It means that there’s a reasonable chance of getting an extension to the moratorium on FAA-AST regulation of passenger safety, which was due to expire in 2012. The suborbital industry hasn’t advanced as much as anticipated when the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act was passed in late 2004, so eight years wasn’t enough. The new chairman will probably be current ranking member John Mica of Florida. His district runs from the northern Orlando suburbs up to the coast from Daytona to St. Augustine, which isn’t really part of the space coast, but it’s just north of it, so I imagine he’ll be amenable to legislation that will help business there.
The Aviation subcommittee, currently run by Russ Carnahan of Missouri, will probably go to ranking member Tom Petri of Wisconsin. From his profile:
A persistent foe of government waste, Petri has repeatedly earned high marks from such organizations as the National Taxpayers Union, the Concord Coalition, Citizens Against Government Waste, Americans for Tax Reform, and the Watchdogs of the Treasury. Over many years he has repeatedly been named a “Guardian of Small Business” by the National Federation of Independent Business, and has won the “National Security Leadership Award” from the American Security Council.
Petri is known for his efforts to apply innovative solutions to problems, with a firm commitment to cost-effectiveness. Accordingly, Norm Ornstein, a prominent political scholar and expert on Congress, has called Petri “one of the most thoughtful members of Congress, filled with lots of ideas about how to make government better,” while senior Washington Post columnist David Broder has called him “a notably independent, creative legislator.”
Seems like he’d also be amenable to sensible legislation that promotes commercial spaceflight, which will also help NASA save money.
It’s really hard to appreciate what great and unexpected news this is. There were a lot of indications that Oberstar was in trouble, but it was still hard to believe that he could actually lose his election. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation should plan on trying to move some legislation this year. It’s hard to believe that the administration would be opposed, given its commercial-friendly space policy in general.
[Update a couple minutes later]
I just realized that I didn’t explain why Oberstar was so bad. Go read this article from 2005 at The Space Review.
[Update a while later]
Here’s a little disappointing news on the space front. I was hoping that Gabbie Giffords would lose in Arizona, and she almost did, but it looks like the libertarians kept her in office, by a couple thousand votes. But at least she’ll no longer chair the space subcommittee. Same thing happened to rocket scientist Ruth McClung. If those libertarians had voted for her, they’d have defeated (Arizona-bashing) Grijalva.
I often, even mostly vote libertarian in elections, to make a political point, but never in one that tight. I do prefer the lesser of the two evils, and it was particularly important in this election to remove as many Democrats as possible.
[Update early afternoon]
The Arizona races are still too close to call.