OK, my question to Dr. Stanley is, if it’s a good idea for Mars, why isn’t it a good idea for the moon?
“If you refilled the EDS in orbit [using commercial LEO fuel depots] it could act as the MTV,” says Georgia Institute of Technology aerospace professor Douglas Stanley, manager of the November 2005 NASA exploration systems architecture study (ESAS).
I think people tend to draw far too many generalizations on the basis of far too few examples in the launch business.
There is a long essay to be written on this subject.
I agree with this as well:
Ironically, most SpaceX personnel come from Boeing, Northrop and other space companies. It is the sometimes Dilbertian environment, not the individual engineers, that holds those organizations back.
I’ve never read anything by “Vox Day” before, but one of my commenters cited him in a previous post. But having read this, it makes it pretty hard to take anything he (or she) has to say seriously:
I tend to support the faked Moon landing theory myself, not because of any particular detail, but simply based on the theory that if the Official Story is that we landed there, then we probably didn’t.
Note, that’s the only reason stated for disbelief–pure contrarianism. Never mind that it would have been much more difficult to fake it than to actually do it, and that all of the supposed “anomalies” or “proofs” that we didn’t go are readily explained by simple references to actual physics and facts.
I should also add that the Fox Network (which is not the same thing as Fox News) should be eternally ashamed of itself for broadcasting that travesty of a crockumentary on the subject a few years ago, and feeding the loons who believe this stuff.
I know a lot about solar power and trust me, space solar power is not a good option.
Elon Musk, Aug 3, 2006
When Caltech looked at the sailboat that lost the America’s Cup, they found that it had less drag being dragged backwards than forwards.
The case for beaming solar power to Earth is bad. So bad that it actually works better to beam from Earth to space.
Jon Goff has some interesting thoughts. I agree, for the most part. If Florida wants to continue to play in the game (at least for commercial vehicles), it has to realize that it no longer has the intrinsic geographical advantage that it’s thought it did for years. This is an issue that is going to take a lot of work with AST to sell, though, particularly for orbital flights.
Apparently, the last Shuttle flight had more foam damage than they thought. It was actually about average. They should keep flying, though. Or shut it down. Stop wasting money and time trying to fix the foam problem.
Jeff Foust has a podcast up of Mike Griffin’s speech and Q&A from last week’s Mar Society Meeting.
Jeff Foust has a podcast up of Mike Griffin’s speech and Q&A from last week’s Mar Society Meeting.
Jeff Foust has a podcast up of Mike Griffin’s speech and Q&A from last week’s Mar Society Meeting.
James Van Allen, discoverer of the magnetic belts surrounding the earth that bear his name, has died. He was one of the most (perhaps the most) notable long-time opponents of the manned space program. He never understood that civil space is about much more than science.
Condolences to his family. It is a loss to science, if not informed space policy debate.