SpaceX’ next launch attempt has apparently been slipped to mid-February, due to a thrust-vector control issue. The static test firing will still occur this weekend, though.

Did the Chinese violate any treaties about not making messes in space when they destroyed their own weather satelllite? My dim understanding is that this issue remains unsettled in the Liability Convention, due to an inability to agree on a definition of the word “debris.” Any space lawyers out there more up to date?

I’d think that, at a minimum, if any of the bits strike someone’s satellite, or ISS, that the Chinese could be held liable under the OST. If it could be proven that it resulted from this event, that is (probably a difficult thing to do).

Brian Dempsey persists in his folly, in comments.

OK, Brian. You claim that SS1 cost five to ten million dollars per flight. So riddle me this: if Burt had decided to fly SS1 one more time, do you claim that he therefore would have had to come up with five to ten million dollars more to do so?

If so, why?

If not, then how much do you think that he would have had to come up with, and in that case, what was your original point, which was comparing SS1 cost to other suborbital vehicle costs (i.e., apples and kumquats). Wasn’t the intent of your mistaken posting to attempt to wrongly persuade people that SS1 is not a substantially cheaper vehicle to operate?

You may think that the difference between marginal and average costs is meaningless, but people who actual understand launch economics (and economics in general) do not.

This guy says we’re not going to colonize space.

Suffice it to say I find his “arguments” uncompelling, even if I were Catholic.

For one thing, he conflates advocates of space colonization with advocates of people looking for ET, as though the two things had anything to do with each other. He also deploys the foolish Antarctica analogy. He should stick to theology.

Over at this post, Brian Dempsey writes:

SS1 cost between $20-30M for 3 flights, which means you

Elon Musk says that the window opens on Saturday.

I’m guessing that this flight is one of their milestones for COTS.

Meanwhile, speaking of COTS, Jeffrey Bell wonders what’s really behind it.

He confuses VSE and ESAS (as many do). The Space Frontier Foundation is not opposed to VSE–it is opposed to ESAS.

I think that the answer to his question is much simpler than any of his speculations, and I don’t buy his theory of “COTS as management slush fund for Constellation.” COTS is funded because the White House wants COTS to be funded. What their motivation is, I don’t know, but this is not a NASA-driven program, for any reason of the reasons he states. And that’s bad news, since it may not have any defenders in a new administration. They’re going to have to make a lot of progress in the next two years to ensure program survival. And even then, it could be cancelled. We’ve certainly done dumber things.

Jon Goff has a nice picture of XCOR’s recent firing of their LOX/Methane engine at night.

My former co-blogger, Sam Dinkin, has challenged teevee weatherman Willard Scott to a wager.

As Jeff Foust notes, yesterday was the third anniversary of the announcement of the Vision for Space Exploration. Jeff thinks that the next two years are crucial. I agree.

When the president made the speech from NASA HQ, I was staying at a motel in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, looking for a house somewhere in the area (we ended up getting a place in Boca Raton). I live blogged it using the wireless in the motel room on my laptop, and then had some further thoughts. I think they hold up pretty well.

In fact, there were several related posts over those few days. You can check them out by scrolling about halfway down here.

Clark Lindsey has a little roundup of links relating to the “Direct Launch” concept. Short answer, Doug Stanley believes that it can’t provide the necessary performance. Having read his argument, I have no reasons to disagree, or think him less than sincere.

Of course, it doesn’t matter to me, since I’ve never been a big fan of it anyway. The fundamental problems with NASA’s approach to achieving the president’s Vision for Space Exploration go far beyond critiques of specific vehicle designs.