A reusable suborbital rocket company based in New Zealand. Call it Kiwispace.
[Monday morning update]
Clark Lindsey has more. Apparently I misinterpreted the project in my quick read. Payloads are recovered, but the vehicles don’t seem to be reused. I also have to say that someone who legally changes his last name for this kind of thing is a lot more fanatical about it than I am.
Just make sure you go before you leave earth.
What wimps. No wonder we’re making such slow progress in space.
That remains my choice among NASA’s heavy-lift options. Doing a new Saturn V seems particularly crazy to me.
[Update a few minutes later]
More over at the Orlando Sentinel space blog. It’s an interesting point that one of the (many) issues with solids is that they are a lot harder to transport to the pad. And I don’t think that the human spaceflight program should be held hostage to the Pentagon’s need to keep ATK in business for military solid work. If it’s important to national security to have a solid manufacturer available, then let them pay for it, instead of perverting NASA’s launch systems and budget.
Time has named the Ares-I the “Invention of the Year“:
TIME’s best invention of the year may send Americans back to the Moon and put the first human on Mars.
Do they even know that it can’t deliver people beyond earth orbit? On the other hand, it is really tall…
This kind of technological illiteracy is pathetic, but it’s what I’ve come to expect from the likes of Time.
[Mid-morning update]
From a reader:
My company was selected for a Time “Invention of the Year.” Hooray, we thought. Then the phone calls from Time started. A bored 20-something with a false Valley girl accent called to talk to the inventor of the thing we had been nominated for. We responded that there was no one person, it was a company-wide effort. It took, and I do not exaggerate, at least 30 minutes to get it through her head that “company” meant “more than one person.” Then the so-called fact checker wanted to know how the one person got the idea for the invention. We patiently explained that it was the company’s job to make such products and that more than one person had contributed to the idea and the building of our nifty little gadget. The fact checker did not know the difference between a pound and a kilogram, had no knowledge of basic chemistry, had never heard of the founders in our field, and didn’t even know what our gadget looked like. Subsequent calls did not remove the impression of careless indifference. Time never did get the story right.
Since that day I have never trusted a single story from Time. Not one. If the writers and editors can’t understand the difference between a pound and a kilogram, what else are they missing?
A lot. It’s a lot easier to just grab a press release from NASA PAO than to have to actually understand what the hell you’re talking about..
[Mid-afternoon update]
More thoughts on the cluelessness of this from Keith Cowing.
Alan Boyle has the story on the asteroid that came within a few thousand miles a couple days ago. And meanwhile, we continue to waste billions on unaffordable and unnecessary new launch systems while doing nothing to become more truly space faring.
Clark Lindsey has done us all the favor of reviewing The Space Review today. Like him, I was struck by Tayylor Dinerman’s completely ignoring ULA in his discussion of the “burgeoning” commercial space industry. But even more, I agree that Dwayne Day’s broad conclusion about public interest in space and space settlement from a single stupid network program is absurd:
The paradigm that near-term space can only involve a small number of people in a small habitat doing technical and scientific tasks does not lend itself to great story telling. Conflicts are required for compelling stories and lots of different types of conflicts are needed to generate enough stories for a compelling TV series. I think the “nearest” near future space scenario that could generate an interesting diversity of plots with a diversity of characters would involve a couple of thousand people populating multiple LEO space stations and habitats at a Lagrange point and bases on the Moon. Commercial, government, and international activities of various kinds would inevitably lead to all sorts of conflicts.
Let’s ignore the fact that most television shows (and particularly Big (though becoming smaller) Three Network television programs) fail, often epically. Big media, like (apparently) Dwayne, remain stuck in the Apollo paradigm of space being about a few civil servants doing science and exploration, at great government expense. Here’s an idea. Try a show about real space pioneers and see how popular it is. IIRC, “Lost In Space” actually did pretty well back in the sixties, or at least a lot better than the schlock that Dwayne reviewed. It’s not the sixties any more, but let’s give it a try anyway. It’s not like LIS was based on the NASA paradigm, so that wouldn’t explain its sixties success, right?
Courtney Stadd will not have to serve any time in prison:
A former top NASA official was sentenced Friday to three years probation, six months of electronic monitoring and a $2,500 fine for steering contract money to a private client.
…The courtroom was nearly filled with dozens of Stadd’s supporters, many of whom wrote the judge attesting to his good character.
…”The government called this corrupt and a lack of integrity,” Collyer said. “I think it was a closer call than that.
“The jury found that whatever the lack of clarity in ethics briefings, it does not excuse his actions,” she said.
After Stadd told the judge he and his family have been devastated by the case, Collyer said that prison time was not needed to protect the public. However, she said, the sentence she imposed would “send a message to other government employees” to conduct themselves with the highest ethical standards.
Sounds like a sensible judge. Good for Courtney and his family. And it remains galling that no one from the Justice Department seems to be investigating Charlie Rangel.
Clark Lindsey has a first-hand report:
Mr. Bolden, a couple of House members and a representative of the administration all said very good things about not just the NGLLC but about prizes in general and their ability to leverage lots of innovation and productivity at low cost. Got the impression that there will be more money coming for Centennial Challenges and other prize programs.
Dave Masten and Phil Eaton gave brief but eloquent remarks.
Two former NSS executive directors were there: Lori Garver, now Deputy NASA Administrator, and George Whitesides, now NASA’s Chief of Staff. With entrepreneurial firms getting big checks via an innovative program like Centennial Challenges, which was inspired by the X PRIZE, and with space advocates in NASA management, I get the feeling that the NewSpace current is starting to flow into the mainstream.
Whatever comes of the Constellation mess, this at least is encouraging.
[Mid-afternoon update]
Chuck Divine also attended, and has more details.
NASA Watch has a poll up on what kind of heavy lifter NASA should build. I’ve decided to do my own, proper poll:
[Mid-afternoon update]
Wow, not much love for either flavor of Ares, at least from my readers. So far, the vast majority goes for “none of the above.”
Is there any amount of money that this thing could cost that would cause you to say, “OK, it’s not worth it”? Because to listen to them defend it, you’d sure think that the answer is “no.” That the only important thing is that it’s “safe,” and to hell with the cost.