I’ve always been skeptical of the “drunk astronauts” story, and think that the media (and Congress) were far too quick to jump on it, since it was never substantiated. It just never really rang true to me. Unfortunately, NASA has been put in the impossible position of having to prove a negative, and there will now be people who will believe it as gospel (just as many will continue to believe that NASA never put men on the moon).

And I have to say that I sympathize with members of the astronaut corps who are justifiably pissed off about it.

But it angers me for another reason. There are so many legitimate issues and problems with the agency, that nonsense like this and crazy astronauts distracts us from dealing with them. Yet another reason to hope for needed breakthroughs in the private sector.

Clark Lindsey addresses the ludicrous, but widespread notion that there is something different about space passenger travel that makes it so fragile that the industry will somehow be destroyed by a single accident.

I suspect that the source of this is the same one that causes us to irrationally grieve astronauts that we’ve never met, and demand that no more ever die. There seems to be something different about space in the minds of many that causes people to check their brains at the door when discussing it.

It’s just another place, people. Folks are going to die opening up frontiers, as they always have. Get over it.

Clark Lindsey addresses the ludicrous, but widespread notion that there is something different about space passenger travel that makes it so fragile that the industry will somehow be destroyed by a single accident.

I suspect that the source of this is the same one that causes us to irrationally grieve astronauts that we’ve never met, and demand that no more ever die. There seems to be something different about space in the minds of many that causes people to check their brains at the door when discussing it.

It’s just another place, people. Folks are going to die opening up frontiers, as they always have. Get over it.

Clark Lindsey addresses the ludicrous, but widespread notion that there is something different about space passenger travel that makes it so fragile that the industry will somehow be destroyed by a single accident.

I suspect that the source of this is the same one that causes us to irrationally grieve astronauts that we’ve never met, and demand that no more ever die. There seems to be something different about space in the minds of many that causes people to check their brains at the door when discussing it.

It’s just another place, people. Folks are going to die opening up frontiers, as they always have. Get over it.

Lots of good stuff over there today. Jeff Foust got an interview with Burt Rutan. I’m not surprised that the accident has caused a delay in engine development (I’d have been surprised if it hadn’t). I am surprised to hear that they’re considering going away from nitrous. What are the other options, if they want to continue to use a hybrid (whose safety Alex Tai continues to tout, a little too much I think)? Peroxide? LOX? They have their problems, too. I wonder if they’ll finally consider releasing control, and giving the work to a propulsion subcontractor that knows what it’s doing (e.g., XCOR, though that would mean a liquid, not a hybrid, since they have no interest in or experience with hybrids).

On other topics, there’s an interesting article about the V-Prize, a concept that was new to me:

The types of aircraft capable of crossing the Atlantic in less than one hour will have rocket engines. Their average speed will be greater than 6,000 km/h and their maximum speed will reach Mach 15 or even Mach 20.

Ken Murphy is looking for submittals for next week’s Carnival of Space.

As we approach the anniversary in October next year, there will be a lot of perspective, and prospective pieces like this one by (fellow) baby boomer Keith Cowing. I’ll no doubt do one or two of my own.

They’ve found a cause, and solution to the foam-falling problem that gouged the tiles on the last flight. I wasn’t sure they’d be able to do it at all, let alone this quickly. On the other hand, I think they could have continued to fly with it as is, and if they hadn’t found a solution, they should have. If it occurred again, it would only be a real problem on the Hubble mission.

I in fact think that the Shuttle is now about as safe as it can be made, and it’s in fact pretty safe. I’ll be very surprised if they lose another orbiter before they retire it. But even if I’m right, that’s no reason to not retire it (though many will attempt to keep it alive). I’ve never thought it should be retired for safety reasons (at least not because it kills astronauts occasionally). We lose people mining, in construction, driving, and even in recreation. The notion that we can’t afford to do so in space is silly. And in fact it’s ridiculous, when we’re losing people fighting a war, to argue that we can’t afford to do so to open a frontier. If we, as a nation, can’t grow up about this, and think that it’s not worth losing people occasionally. we should just give up.

As I’ve noted previously, and recently, the real problem with an unreliable Shuttle is that we can’t spare the vehicles. A reusable vehicle that’s not reliable isn’t affordable (one of the reasons that talking about “human rating” one is oxymoronic, and misses the point). And the real problem with Shuttle isn’t that it’s unsafe, but that it costs too much, for too little. There are a lot more useful things that we could be doing in space for that billion dollars per flight. Unfortunately, NASA is replacing it with a system that will be no improvement at all in that regard.

Emily Lakdawalla has the Seventeenth Edition.

I haven’t commented on this, but the New Scientist has a fairly extensive story of Armadillo’s bad weekend.

What do I think?

First of all, full disclosure. I’m working, as I write this, for one of Armadillo’s competitors, on SBIR proposals. But it’s a close-knit community, even among the competitors.

And having said that, I don’t think it’s a disaster for Armadillo. These kinds of things are going to happen along the way, as we start to understand how to develop operable and affordable space transports (a goal that has eluded both the military and NASA, almost half a century after the dawn of the space age). I also find it interesting (and I have to confess, somewhat amusing) that the failure was fundamentally a software failure, given the pedigree of the company that provided the funds that created the vehicle:

Post-crash analysis has revealed what went wrong