…but a lot later than we wanted, due to hellacious traffic getting out of LA. Things didn’t really start to move until we got halfway up the Cajon Pass. So, later dinner at Mandalay Bay, and then on to Colorado in the morning. But Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. I’ll leave you with a video from another Christmas eve, forty-one years ago.
I had a piece on this story last year, on the fortieth anniversary. Hard to believe it’s been a year since I wrote that.
Dale Amon has many shots of the SpaceShipTwo roll out a couple weeks ago.
Clark Lindsey responds to Dwayne Day’s latest snarkfest against space enthusiasts.
Cory Doctorow needs the solution to one for a story.
There is no analytical solution to his problem — you really have to do a sim.
Mark Matthews and Bobby Block have the most in-depth reporting on Chairwoman Giffords’ too-cozy relationship with NASA and Constellation defenders that I’ve seen to date. But is it actually a conflict of interest? I’m not sure about that. As the article notes, her husband is unlikely to fly on anything resulting from the POR, and while he may have a job lined up with one of the usual suspects, he’d probably be able to get it regardless. If anyone is aware of a more quid-pro-quoish possibility on this front, I’d be interested to hear about it, though, in light of the history of the Horowitz revolving door with ATK.
But what I do think is happening is that her husband is a big supporter of the POR, and he has no doubt influenced her to be one as well. I’m not excusing her behavior toward the committee or Chairman Augustine, or her apparent ignorance or flawed understanding of the issues about which she has oversight responsibility, and I wish that someone else had her job, but I just don’t see it as corrupt. I do think, though, that the criticism of her husband for romancing her with taxpayer resources is fair and legitimate.
Without getting into the issue of whether this year is the end of the decade, Alan Boyle has a list of science stories of the ten years of the double goose egg, of which this is definitely the last. I have a couple nits, though.
First, SpaceShipOne and the X-Prize had nothing to do with science really — they were engineering achievements. Spaceflight is not synonymous with science, and the notion that it is is one of the things that holds us back from doing more of it, and more cost effectively.
And if the 2007 Nobel prize to which he is referring was Al Gore’s, it had nothing to do with science either, unless it was bogus science, as his “documentary” was (for which the Oscar should also be revoked). It was a Peace Prize, not a science prize.
It’s finally time, long past time, really, to abandon it, if we want to make any serious progress in space. This was a major theme of my piece in The New Atlantis last summer.
…of asteroid avoidance.
This, much more than the technology, is something that we have to think about very hard — how to deal with the international legal liability.
It’s a little on the pricy side, but this new book on space tourism regulation
If this report is correct, it is.
I’ve thought for a long time that it was a dead rocket walking. It simply cost too much, and made too little sense (though, of course, that’s never stopped NASA before). But we won’t know for sure until next year, and in the meantime, NASA will continue to waste money on things like this, because to stop work would be a tip off of the new policy. And of course, the article isn’t very specific about what the new heavy lifter will look like. It’s a shame that Augustine didn’t put a stake through the heart of heavy lift, but at least we got rid of the Corn Dog.