…until the next Space Investment Summit, this time in San Jose. If you’re a potential space investor, or investee, this is a good opportunity to do some matchmaking.

Mike Snead has a very interesting piece on the need for developing infrastructure in space, in this case for the deployment of space-based solar power, but the system he describes would also make it much more cost effective for NASA to do planetary exploration, both manned and unmanned. And it’s a goal toward which they’re making, to first order, zero investment.

There’s very little in the piece with which I would disagree, though there is a quibble:

I do not use the term

It’s moon mania over at Out of the Cradle, and here is the 31st Carnival of Space.

I see that Mark Whittington is planning a new work of fiction:

I am also reminded that soon I must write an essay about the Internet Rocketeer Club, how does one spot a member, and how to avoid being a member.

I’ll grant him this–he has a rich imagination.

Chair Force Engineer lists the technologies that need to be developed for us to become spacefaring, but are being largely ignored by NASA. I don’t agree with his prescription for a scramjet first stage for cheap launch, though. That may be the answer, some day, but it’s not obvious that it will be, and it certainly isn’t necessary to get big improvements in the near term.

But instead of making progress in these crucial areas, NASA is spending billions to return to the sixties.

Leonard David has a good piece this morning on the prospects for commercial space.

There was actually a mini debate between Elon Musk and Alex Tai at their press conference at the Personal Spaceflight Symposium last month, in which Alex expressed skepticism as to whether New Space can be comparable to the Dotcom industry, in terms of the potential for huge returns and wealth generation. Elon thought that there would be some sort of significant funding event that would open the investor floodgates, as happened with IT, and Alex thought that this was a more conventional industry, with more conventional rates of return. But he also expressed hope that he’s wrong.

We may find out in the next couple years, given the list of potential events that could occur in that time frame that Leonard lays out.

Leonard David has a good piece this morning on the prospects for commercial space.

There was actually a mini debate between Elon Musk and Alex Tai at their press conference at the Personal Spaceflight Symposium last month, in which Alex expressed skepticism as to whether New Space can be comparable to the Dotcom industry, in terms of the potential for huge returns and wealth generation. Elon thought that there would be some sort of significant funding event that would open the investor floodgates, as happened with IT, and Alex thought that this was a more conventional industry, with more conventional rates of return. But he also expressed hope that he’s wrong.

We may find out in the next couple years, given the list of potential events that could occur in that time frame that Leonard lays out.

Leonard David has a good piece this morning on the prospects for commercial space.

There was actually a mini debate between Elon Musk and Alex Tai at their press conference at the Personal Spaceflight Symposium last month, in which Alex expressed skepticism as to whether New Space can be comparable to the Dotcom industry, in terms of the potential for huge returns and wealth generation. Elon thought that there would be some sort of significant funding event that would open the investor floodgates, as happened with IT, and Alex thought that this was a more conventional industry, with more conventional rates of return. But he also expressed hope that he’s wrong.

We may find out in the next couple years, given the list of potential events that could occur in that time frame that Leonard lays out.

The one that never happened. Retro artists’ depictions from the early space age.

Jeff Foust has a transcript of an interview with him, on the subject of Blue Origin. It’s good that he has a passion for the project, given his skepticism about the market.