Category Archives: Space

History, Space, Space History

Men On The Moon

21 Comments

The next three weeks or so leading up to the anniversary are going to be full of pieces like this, from a British journalist who covered the event. It’s a good piece, and I don’t want to diss it–it’s obviously a key part of his own personal history and inspired him, but I disagree with this notion, which will also be a common one among the upcoming commemorations:

A new era was to begin: there would one day be huge satellite cities in space, colonies on the moon, an outpost on Mars, and all before 2001.

This is just not true, much as we’d like it to be. Apollo, for all of the wonder of the achievement, was in fact a detour from the road to those goals. I’ll be explaining that more in my essay a little later this summer in The New Atlantis. I would also note that Eagle didn’t separate from “Apollo.” It did so from the spacecraft Columbia. But that’s just a nit compared to the other point, and I encourage people to enjoy the piece anyway–it’s generally a good historical description of the event.

Popular Culture, Space

It’s It

15 Comments

Really. It’s It. A schlocky space movie review (the movie, not the review). You should always start your day with Lileks.

[Afternoon update]

I have to say (via Lileks’ commenters) that this is the kind of space future that I was really looking forward to back in the seventies. (Wow. Is there some kind of anti-gravity device holding those things on?)

What? Of course I’m talking about the interplanetary robot dogs. What else would I be talking about?

[Bumped]

[Evening update]

OK, someone points out in comments that there is a spaghetti strap going on there.

Looking closer, I see it now. I guess I was distracted by the…errrmmm…robot dogs…from seeing that strap.

Yeah, that’s it. I mean, they look great, don’t they?

The robot dogs, I mean.

I’d love to be able to play with a pair like that.

Space

Another Space Bleg

6 Comments

I’m quite sure that Doug Stanley is on record as not being on board with the moon as a goal for VSE, and wanted to use the opportunity to build a (heavy-lift) infrastructure for Mars. But can anyone point me to a citable source for this?

Yes, I am working on a major piece for a serious publication…

Space

New Space Bleg

19 Comments

I have a recollection that at some time within the past few years, Burt Rutan made a statement to the effect that if we weren’t killing a few people to open up space we weren’t pushing hard enough. But a diligent search of the Intertubes doesn’t turn up anything like that. Does anyone else recall this, and if so can they provide a citation? Or was I just imagining it?

Political Commentary, Space

Advice For Augustine

2 Comments

Wes Huntress has some. I agree with a lot of what he says, but not all:

The directive to land on the Moon by 2020 is not achievable given the agency’s current limited out-year budget, costs for Constellation development, and the looming requirement to support the International Space Station beyond 2015. The best approach to lower cost and sustained development is to leverage existing space transportation infrastructure to the maximum.

I absolutely agree with the second sentence, but not the first. It is possible to get to the moon by 2020, within the available funding. But in order to do so, NASA has to focus its resources on getting to the moon, in an affordable and sustainable manner, using that existing infrastructure. As long, though, as they focus on developing their own launch systems, it will never happen. And not just because they’re not very good at developing launch systems.

I wouldn’t emphasize the international part, either. I don’t mind doing partnerships, if they make sense, but we shouldn’t do things internationally for its own sake. I wouldn’t abandon the moon–I think that NASA should be developing a lander, but that’s really the only major hardware element (at least in terms of transportation) that’s lunar specific. We need to develop a general deep-space transportation infrastructure, and it NASA had focused on that instead of Ares/Orion, they’d be a good way down that road now.

Political Commentary, Space

Buzz Weighs In

29 Comments

He has some advice for the Augustine Panel, over at Popular Mechanics. He wants to go to Mars, and he doesn’t like solids. Scrap Ares I.

[Update on Thursday afternoon]

Newsflash! Mark Whittington has finally revealed one of the members of his secretive Internet Rocketeers Club:

Rand Simberg, the Bill Maher of the Internet Rocketeers.

Well, like Bill Maher, except funny. And not an asshat.

And I’ve never gotten a decoder ring (who do I complain to, Mark?). So I guess I got gypped. And I actually work on space stuff for a living, so I can’t figure out what the criteria are for membership in his heretofore imaginary club. I guess it must just be anyone who is smarter than Mark and talks about space on the Internet. Which is, admittedly, a pretty darned big club.