Category Archives: Space

Political Commentary, Space

Constellation Panel

4 Comments

Clark Lindsey doesn’t usually editorialize, but he does in this report:

Cooke:

– Powerpoint graphics showing Ares I/V, Orion, Altair

– Factors in selecting architecture include performance end-to-end, risk, development cost, life-cycle cost, schedule, lunar surface systems architecture.

– Implementation according to NASA institutional health and transition from Shuttle, competition in contracts, civil service contractor rules.

– Discusses the studies that justify the Constellation architecture that Griffin had decided on long before he came to NASA as director and long before the studies were done.

– Will get problems like thrust oscillation solved.

– NASA proposes to stay on course through a change in administrations. Surprise, surprise…

Emphasis mine. Are they actually openly admitting that Mike ignored all of the CE&R studies, and just did what he planned to do before he was administrator?

This was amusing:

The Coalition for Space Exploration shows a brand new NASA space exploration promotion video. Gawd. After the last panel I felt like killing myself. No problem. I can watch this video again and die of boredom…

He has some other pretty tart comments as well.

[Early afternoon update]

As Clark notes in comments, that reference to Griffin’s plans were his words, not Steve Cooke’s.

Space

Personal Space Travel In Europe

Unfortunately, the ISDC in Washington this week coincides with the space tourism conference in Arcachon, France, and space bloggers like Clark Lindsey and Jeff Foust (who both live in the DC area) can’t cover both. But Rob Coppinger has a lot of posts from Arcachon, with some interesting concepts from European aerospace companies (though it’s unclear what the funding prospects are for them). Just keep scrolling.

[Update an hour or so later]

Clark Lindsey has some of the permalinks.

Business, Space

Virgin Tales

8 Comments

Jeff Foust has some reporting on Will Whitehorn’s talk at ISDC yesterday. In this post, he notes that White Knight 2 will roll out on July 28th, presumably in Mojave, and discusses other potential applications than just a first stage for SpaceShipTwo, including a satellite launcher. The lack of comment other than “we’ve learned some lessons” on the SS2 propulsion is interesting to me. It sounds like they’re still not sure what they’re going to do, which continues to put SS2 schedule (whatever it is) in jeopardy. I suspect that Sir Richard’s hype remains ahead of the actual program.

In this post Whitehorn mildly disses the Lynx:

XCOR is a company I respect, but with respect to them, they’re not building a spaceship. They’re building basically a high-altitude MiG equivalent. They’re building something that you can strap in and go up to 37 miles. You won’t get your astronaut wings but you will see the curvature of the earth. That will be an exciting project, but the problem is that it’s not a space project, and I think it’s been a little bit wrong to call it that.

While technically that’s true, it is a project that can easily evolve into a “space project,” which is what the program intent is. I don’t see this as a problem. In fact, I see it as a solution, because Virgin may have bitten off more than it could chew with SS2. In hindsight (and foresight for some of us) it might have been useful to develop more operational experience with a lower-performance vehicle before moving to a bigger one.

Really, the only thing lacking from the XCOR product is a lack of astronaut wings–it will certainly be a space experience, and a more personal one with a better view, sitting in the left seat. I think that the market for it will be bigger than Whitehorn claims to think.

Space

More ISDC Blogging

2 Comments

Clark Lindsey blogs a panel on interactions between private space and the government, that sounds interesting. Unfortunately, because there are so many parallel tracks at an ISDC, it’s not possible for one person to cover everything, but he does his best with a report on the space-based solar power session and lunar regolith processing.

And Glenn Reynolds is there now, due to speak shortly, topic TBD. Wish I could have made it this year. I managed to have dinner and drinks with him last year in Dallas (first time I’d seen him in years).

Space, Technology and Society, Weird

I Hate When That Happens

10 Comments

It’s a pretty common occurrence for a little kid to be disappointed when he loses his grip on his balloon, but this is in a different class entirely:

The former paratrooper had hoped his “Big Jump” — starting 40 kilometers (25 miles) above the Earth’s surface — would set new records for the highest jump, fastest and longest free fall and the highest altitude reached by a man in a balloon.

But those hopes drifted away over the plains of Saskatchewan in Canada when the balloon escaped.

I think he should give up on the balloon thing, and just wait for a rocket ride.