Category Archives: Space

Business, Political Commentary, Space

The Chevy Small Block Of Space

17 Comments

Is that what the Merlin is? A little early to say, I’d say, but I think one could come up with some creative new vehicles using it in the lower stages and the R-10 up above. If I were in control of NASA R&T budgets, something I’d have done a long time ago was to pay Pratt to test them to destruction to determine how many restarts they could do and how many hours they could fire without refurbishment. If I were SpaceX, I’d be doing the same with Merlin. Perhaps they already are.

Speaking of rocket design, I see that the rocket scientists on the Hill have been sharpening their pencils. I guess that Bill Nelson not only flew into space once, but he must have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, too.

Business, Space

Clarifying

17 Comments

I talked to Elon for half an hour or so last night, to make sure that I was getting the story straight on an article I’m writing for Popular Mechanics, but he didn’t really tell me anything that changed the relevant aspects of my story. It does, however, change the spin on the story that AvLeak did a few days ago, and they’ve provided a correction, based apparently on a similar conversation with him. It’s always possible to read too much into technical papers presented at professional conferences (not to mention retirement aspirations), and that seems to be what occurred here. SpaceX would like to build a heavy lifter, but they don’t see the market for it absent NASA interest, which sort of makes the point that I’ve always made — that it’s not affordable, or even necessarily the best way to do the exploration job. I am sure, though, that if NASA really needs a heavy lifter, funding SpaceX to build it is the most affordable option.

Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

The Bermuda Triangle

19 Comments

Solved?

Oceanographic surveyors of the sea floor in the area of the Bermuda Triangle and the North Sea region between continental Europe and Great Britain have discovered significant quantities of methane hydrates and older eruption sites.

Because of the correlations and existing data, the two envisioned what would happen when gigantic methane bubbles explode from natural fissures on the seafloor.

Makes sense to me. There would be no warning, and nothing you could do. You might be able to set up a warning system for aircraft, though, perhaps with satellite monitoring. I don’t think that ships would have the ability to escape. Too slow and unmaneuverable. Better to avoid the area, or perhaps to better map the deposits, and put them on the charts like other hazards.

[Via Geekpress]

General, Space

Sean O’Keefe

3 Comments

This AP story doesn’t say who’s aboard, but I’m hearing other reports that he was aboard the plane that crashed in Alaska.

He’s a former administrator, so it will have no effect on policy, obviously, but condolences to his friends and family if he and/or his son didn’t survive.

[Update a while later]

More over at NASA Watch.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space

Mike Griffin

14 Comments

…continues to defend the indefensible. Clark Lindsey has a response. Others have commented on this particularly bit of misleading the uninformed:

Griffin also suggested that the plan didn’t put much thought into the decision to defer a human return to the Moon in favor of a mission to a near Earth asteroid by 2025. The made that choice, he suggested, “apparently without realizing that the delta-V to get to almost all asteroids is higher than the delta-V to get to Mars” with similarly long travel times and limited launch windows. “In a number of ways reaching asteroids can be harder than reaching Mars.”

While I agree that it’s unlikely that much thought was put into the 2025 asteroid mission, this is disingenuous. No one said that we’re going to visit “almost all asteroids,” or even one in the main belt, so the velocity needed to get to “almost all asteroids” is irrelevant. All that really matters is the delta-V to get to the one that we choose, and there are many earth crossers with very low requirements.

On the subject of his comments about new technologies, I would expand on Clark’s critique. Mike says:

He was skeptical of the plan’s emphasis on “gamechanging” technologies to enable human space exploration. “Any time I develop a new technology I potentially change someone’s game,” he said. “Without a plan, I don’t know what game, I don’t know if it’s the game I ought to be changing, or if it’s a high-value game or a low-value game, but I’m going to change something, so it’s pretty easy to promise that I’ll do gamechanging technologies.”

He added that such technology development programs can be prime targets for future budget cuts, either by the Office of Management and Budget or in Congress. “The Congress surgically removes those programs and spreads the money to goals that they have in mind,” he claimed. “No congressman or senator ever gets credit for a technology program. Congressmen and senators get credit for projects.”

The first statement is simply gobbledygook (to be kind). It’s real simple, Mike. The plan is to explore the solar system with human beings. The current “game,” which you reinforced with Apollo on Steroids, deliberately eschewing the use of any new technology, is unaffordable and unsustainable, the complete opposite of what the Aldridge Commission recommended that the VSE must be. Any technology that dramatically reduces the development or operational cost, or increases the amount of activity that can be performed for a given cost, is a “game changer” and a high-value one. Deferring for now the development of heavy lifters and replacing them with propellant depots (as the Augustine panel members cited as a “game changer”) would be one example.

As for what congressmen or senators get “credit” for,” all he’s really saying is that unless it’s a big jobs program, it’s not politically sustainable. That is all the more reason to get the commercial people in the game as soon as possible, so that they can rely on things other than porcine motivations for continued space activity. And as the events of the past few months show, it’s clear that when the price per pound is astronomical, even pork can’t survive forever, even if it was accomplishing useful things toward the goal of opening up space, as Constellation was not. So given the choice between politically unsustainable hyperexpensive launchers and politically unsustainable useful new technologies, give me the technologies.