As Clark notes, the time grows short to register for the Heinlein Centennial Celebration next month. As someone strongly influenced by him in my youth, I’d love to attend, but it’s hard to justify the time or money right now.

There’s an Atlas V launch this morning, scheduled for 11:18 AM EDT. I may go out and look if it hasn’t clouded up down here–we’re expecting a lot of rain in south Florida this afternoon (and tomorrow, and into the weekend).

[Update a few minutes before scheduled launch]

Flight’s been delayed four minutes, to 11:22, to resolve some (almost literally) last-minute issues. Unfortunately it’s clouding up here, so I don’t think I’ll see it.

[Update at 11:19 AM]

Range just went red. Launch has been rescheduled for 11:45. I guess they don’t have a tight window on it. There’s not much info available on the orbit or constraints–the payloads are classified.

[Update at 11:38 AM]

Apparently, they have until noon, and then they’ll have to push it to tomorrow. The weather’s supposed to be even worse tomorrow, at least down here, though it may be all right up at the Cape.

[Update a minute later]

Scrubbed for today.

There’s an Atlas V launch this morning, scheduled for 11:18 AM EDT. I may go out and look if it hasn’t clouded up down here–we’re expecting a lot of rain in south Florida this afternoon (and tomorrow, and into the weekend).

[Update a few minutes before scheduled launch]

Flight’s been delayed four minutes, to 11:22, to resolve some (almost literally) last-minute issues. Unfortunately it’s clouding up here, so I don’t think I’ll see it.

[Update at 11:19 AM]

Range just went red. Launch has been rescheduled for 11:45. I guess they don’t have a tight window on it. There’s not much info available on the orbit or constraints–the payloads are classified.

[Update at 11:38 AM]

Apparently, they have until noon, and then they’ll have to push it to tomorrow. The weather’s supposed to be even worse tomorrow, at least down here, though it may be all right up at the Cape.

[Update a minute later]

Scrubbed for today.

There’s an Atlas V launch this morning, scheduled for 11:18 AM EDT. I may go out and look if it hasn’t clouded up down here–we’re expecting a lot of rain in south Florida this afternoon (and tomorrow, and into the weekend).

[Update a few minutes before scheduled launch]

Flight’s been delayed four minutes, to 11:22, to resolve some (almost literally) last-minute issues. Unfortunately it’s clouding up here, so I don’t think I’ll see it.

[Update at 11:19 AM]

Range just went red. Launch has been rescheduled for 11:45. I guess they don’t have a tight window on it. There’s not much info available on the orbit or constraints–the payloads are classified.

[Update at 11:38 AM]

Apparently, they have until noon, and then they’ll have to push it to tomorrow. The weather’s supposed to be even worse tomorrow, at least down here, though it may be all right up at the Cape.

[Update a minute later]

Scrubbed for today.

Burt Rutan thinks that the operating cost of EADS’s proposal will be too high. I’m actually much more concerned (as is he) with the development costs. I’ve seen an estimate of a billion Euros. At 200,000 euros a ticket, you’ll have to sell about five thousand rides just to get back the non-recurring costs, and that doesn’t even include the cost of the money.

I think that the suborbital market makes sense, but not if you have to spend that much money up front. I think a smart entrepreneur could get to orbit for that amount (Elon has only spent a tenth of that amount, though he’s not returning). I just don’t think that a conventional player, like EADS (or Boeing, or Lockheed Martin) has either the cost structure or the risk acceptance to take on a program like this and make it successful. I suppose, though, it’s possible that they’re willing to take a bath on it if they expect it to give them a pre-cursor for a much larger point-to-point market, or military applications.

[Reading a few more articles]

Ah, they’re not committed to it. They’re just floating a trial balloon:

“We are offering a profitable system and have given ourselves until early 2008 to find industrial partners to share the risk, private investment of around

I hadn’t noticed this before, but apparently Mark Wade has put up a little history of the CEV and Constellation program, which describes how Mike Griffin’s NASA, for whatever reasons, completely ignored the advice of its contractors, to whom it had paid millions of dollars to provide potential solutions, and came up with an architecture that, in “synthesizing their suggestions,” bore no resemblance to any of them. Of course, they were just doing their job, trying to follow the dictates of the Aldridge Commission (including affordability and sustainability, and synergy with national security), which NASA seems to think no longer matters.

David Portree has some ill-informed speculation about the NewSpace (which he misspells) industry and space tourism. I was going to respond, but Jeff Foust and Clark Lindsey have already done so more than adequately in his comments section. As Clark notes, it would be nice if people who call themselves “space historians” would educate themselves about what is actually going on instead of embarrassing themselves, and potentially misleading others, in blog posts.

Back before the 2004 election, there were rumors that the Bush administration was considering withdrawal or renegotiation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which briefly encouraged me. Alas, the pebble disappeared into the pond with nary a ripple.

Now, apparently the administration is instead pushing the Law Of The Sea Treaty. Andy McCarthy is appropriately appalled:

Our current threat environment, coupled with the abysmal performance of international institutions, cries out for a re-thinking all these multi-lateral commitments. Negroponte and England’s claim that we need to ratify LOST in order to demonstrate our commitment to “the rule of law” is absurd. The American people, who do more for the people of the world than any nation in history, have a rule of law; it is known as the Constitution. It allows us to make agreements as needed with nations based on our mutual interests (and it is worth noting that most of the benefits under LOST are already honored under other treaties and international law

Back before the 2004 election, there were rumors that the Bush administration was considering withdrawal or renegotiation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which briefly encouraged me. Alas, the pebble disappeared into the pond with nary a ripple.

Now, apparently the administration is instead pushing the Law Of The Sea Treaty. Andy McCarthy is appropriately appalled:

Our current threat environment, coupled with the abysmal performance of international institutions, cries out for a re-thinking all these multi-lateral commitments. Negroponte and England’s claim that we need to ratify LOST in order to demonstrate our commitment to “the rule of law” is absurd. The American people, who do more for the people of the world than any nation in history, have a rule of law; it is known as the Constitution. It allows us to make agreements as needed with nations based on our mutual interests (and it is worth noting that most of the benefits under LOST are already honored under other treaties and international law

Back before the 2004 election, there were rumors that the Bush administration was considering withdrawal or renegotiation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which briefly encouraged me. Alas, the pebble disappeared into the pond with nary a ripple.

Now, apparently the administration is instead pushing the Law Of The Sea Treaty. Andy McCarthy is appropriately appalled:

Our current threat environment, coupled with the abysmal performance of international institutions, cries out for a re-thinking all these multi-lateral commitments. Negroponte and England’s claim that we need to ratify LOST in order to demonstrate our commitment to “the rule of law” is absurd. The American people, who do more for the people of the world than any nation in history, have a rule of law; it is known as the Constitution. It allows us to make agreements as needed with nations based on our mutual interests (and it is worth noting that most of the benefits under LOST are already honored under other treaties and international law