Dan Schmelzer has a breakdown. As I suspected, financing rounds are early progress milestones. For RpK, its second one is coming up this month. I assume that they have until the end of the month to meet it.
[Late morning update]
I just realized that my first sentence could be misinterpreted. I mean he has a breakdown of the COTS documents. I didn’t mean to cast aspersions on his mental health, which (unlike, apparently, Lisa Nowak) I trust is fine.
Lots more budget discussion over at Space Politics today.
As I noted yesterday, I think that this is the biggest problem with ESAS:
Griffin will be gone in January 2009. He needs to put his overall strategy in place
Alan Boyle has a roundup of thoughts over Mrs. Nowack’s escapades. And he beats me to the punch on the article title–guess I’ll have to come up with a new one.
Alan Boyle has a roundup of thoughts over Mrs. Nowack’s escapades. And he beats me to the punch on the article title–guess I’ll have to come up with a new one.
Alan Boyle has a roundup of thoughts over Mrs. Nowack’s escapades. And he beats me to the punch on the article title–guess I’ll have to come up with a new one.
What if it had happened on a Mars mission? That’s the nightmare of the psychs at NASA.
[Update at 7:20 Eastern]
I’m sure that it’s occurred to others, but isn’t wearing a diaper for an expected long mission exactly what a deranged ‘stro would do?
I haven’t had much to say about the submitted NASA budget, because I’ve been really busy (and have some personal problems right now), but there’s a lot of good discussion over at Space Politics (there are other posts on the subject as well).
Jeff Foust noted yesterday that it’s crunch time for NASA, sooner than many expected. I agree with Chair Force Engineer that if the program dies, or never gets beyond LEO, it will be an own goal by Griffin and company, who insisted on building new unneeded launch systems instead of focusing the funds on actual exploration hardware.
[Update a few minutes later]
Clark Lindsey has been doing some budget analysis to determine the potential fate of Centennial Challenges and COTS.
Wow. Talk about the wrong stuff.
Dr. Sanity (a former psych profiler for NASA) has some thoughts on a culture of toxic narcissism.
Unjustified astronaut worship is one of the unfortunate consequences that lingers on, almost half a century after the Cold-War space program began. Just one more reason to try to privatize things ASAP. And of course, this is going to unfairly reflect badly on all the astronauts who really do have the “right” stuff.
[Late morning update]
Heh. Comment #50:
As another famous pilot once said,
“a trench coat and wig and, a knife, BB pistol, rubber tubing and plastic bags….Gosh a feller could have a pretty good time in Vegas with this stuff.”
[Afternoon update]
It’s already been added to her bio at wikipedia.
I see that she’s only flown once, last July. I wonder when this behavior started? Several astronauts have been profoundly affected by their trips into space. Some have gotten religion, some became addicted to various substances. The Overview Effect
[Late afternoon update]
I’m a little surprised to see that this has become the news story of the day, at least on Fox. But maybe I shouldn’t be. There’s probably a TCS column or two in this somewhere.
[Another update a couple minutes later]
I fearlessly predict that some kind of “space adaptation derangement” will play a key part of the defense. I say this because I already heard it on John Gibson’s show. Seriously, I do think that it will be played as insanity and a crime of passion. And I wouldn’t rule out the Overview Effect
Clark Lindsey has updated his Commercial Space Timeline for 2007.
Just to the north of me. Apparently several people were killed by tornadoes early this morning up in central Florida, and now there are tornado warnings for Titusville and the Cape. While it’s unlikely, if a twister were to hit the VAB, it could be a disaster for NASA. Of course, a hurricane is a much larger threat, due to the more comprehensive nature of it, but it’s certainly possible (and would be extremely bad luck) to get hit by a tornado.