Jim Oberg ably makes it. I wish he wouldn’t use the stupid and inaccurate “look but don’t touch” phrase, though (he does it twice in the article) — it undermines his argument, and it will only encourage other journalists to do so.
Category Archives: Space
Still Crazy After All These Months
Clark Lindsey, on the irony of Mike Griffin’s continuing complaints about having his expensive toys taken away.
Does NASA Need Public Support?
Some thoughts from Paul Spudis.
To Boldly Go
I have some thoughts on human spaceflight and inappropriate risk aversion, over at Popular Mechanics.
A Roundup Of Reaction
…to the Augustine summary, over at NASA Watch.
[Early morning/late evening update]
I haven’t read the whole thing, but I’ve scanned the intro, to take a break from doing triage on my office before packing it up tomorrow. Two things jump out at me. First:
Can we explore with reasonable assurances of human safety? Human space travel has many benefits, but it is an inherently dangerous endeavor. Human safety can never be absolutely ssured, but throughout this report, it is treated as a sine qua non. It is not discussed in extensive detail because any concepts falling short in human safety have simply been eliminated from consideration.
If the sine qua non of the opening of the New World had been human safety, we would still be in Europe, wondering why we couldn’t return to the Caribbean forty years after Columbus’ first voyage. We would never have opened up the western United States, and we would not have settled California and built an aerospace industry that ultimately got us to the moon. This is a major fail on the part of the panel, for politically correct reasons.
Second, in the “five key questions to guide human spaceflight”:
3. On what should the next heavy-lift launch vehicle be based?
This, to me, is tragic. It is the primary reason that we remain stuck in LEO, forty years after Apollo. Note that the assumption is how should we build, not if we should build, a heavy lifter.
Norm (and I am assuming, based on comments he made in the public hearings, that this was driven by him), you disappoint me. But perhaps I shouldn’t have expected better from the old guard. This flawed assumption lies at the heart of the recommendations. I hope it won’t continue to be a stake in the heart of progress in human spaceflight, but I suspect it will. At least for government human spaceflight. Fortunately, others, who are spending their own money, won’t succumb to this continuing disastrous conventional wisdom.
We’ll see in good time what the administration’s response is.
Launch Reliability
With the summary of the Augustine report being released today, and a lot of people thinking about future space policy, while I don’t have time in the middle of a move to write anything fresh, I’ve written so much in the past that I can run some golden oldies. Here’s what I think is a relevant piece that I wrote over half a decade ago.
COTS-Like Procurement
What’s not to like? Unless you’re a cost-plust contractor, of course. Or a Senator more interested in “jobs” than progress or parsimony with the taxpayers’ money.
One application not mentioned — interorbital LEO tugs. And safe haven co-orbiting facilities that would eliminate much of the need for an ISS lifeboat (though not ambulance).
Artists In Space
Many have advocated for years that NASA shouldn’t just send the steely-eyed missile men into space, but teachers, journalists, and artists, to properly articulate the experience and make it more accessible to the public. Well, the teacher things didn’t work out so well, and they never got around to a journalist (Miles O’Brien was being considered, IIRC, prior to the Columbia loss). And they’ve never even thought much about an artist, but that’s OK, because one is going to pay his own way. Private enterprise at work.
This is the future of human spaceflight, not government employees.
[Early afternoon update]
Related thoughts from Jeff Foust.
The Future Of Orion
Some thoughts from “Mr. X.”
The Latest Lurio Report
Clark Lindsey has the T of C.