The Space Corps is extending its reach.
While cislunar literally means “between,” I think it would include five the Lagrange points, not just L-1.
Category Archives: Space
Nelson Reminds Congress
…that they’re the ones failing to fund a lunar lander.
And with the questions about safety, they continue to show themselves to be unserious about space.
Relaxing Regs?
I’m semi-encouraged by this, but I doubt that it goes far enough. The range rules go back to the 50s, when Our Rockets Always Blow Up. They need to be updated to the 21st century, particularly for reusable vehicles in which shedding parts down range is an anomaly, not routine.
More Progress In Boca Chica
OK, you can fast forward through the bits about “the climate crisis.”
Seventeen Years
Hard to believe it’s been that long since SpaceShipOne first went to space. I live blogged it at the time. Just scroll down.
Musk Versus Bezos
That Strange Congressional Hearing On Wednesday
It doesn’t have my byline, but I have a blog post up at the SpaceTech Analytics website.
The Four Horsemen
Yes, there are existential risks, but climate is not one of them. And if it is, it would be from cooling, not heating.
An ELEO Thought Experiment
Imagine that you could have 150,000 tons of cargo (or people) delivered to equatorial LEO annually, at $60/lbm. What would you do with it? What are the markets? We’re talking on the order of $5B/year.
[Update late afternoon]
Note that that’s less than a quarter of the NASA budget…
For that money, we could have 150,000 tons of material/people in orbit, or pay for another year of SLS/Orion.
[Friday-morning update]
Thanks to a comment, I went and rechecked, and found an error in the spreadsheet. The cost is more like $20/lbm.
Red Tape
The orbital Starship attempt probably won’t happen in July.