Maybe. If all goes well, SpaceX may finally get off their first launch to orbit, at 4 PM EST. Clark Lindsey has a roundup of links with which to follow proceedings.

Maybe. If all goes well, SpaceX may finally get off their first launch to orbit, at 4 PM EST. Clark Lindsey has a roundup of links with which to follow proceedings.

Maybe. If all goes well, SpaceX may finally get off their first launch to orbit, at 4 PM EST. Clark Lindsey has a roundup of links with which to follow proceedings.

Fabio Sau, UND says:

I count on all of you to provide me with your input and insight for my master thesis. Please, visit this quick online survey on the Political Feasibility of a Human Mission to Mars.

–Update–
New link.

John Marburger made a speech at the Goddard Symposium, in which, as Paul Dietz notes, he clearly gets it:

The Moon has unique significance for all space applications for a reason that to my amazement is hardly ever discussed in popular accounts of space policy. The Moon is the closest source of material that lies far up Earth’s gravity well. Anything that can be made from Lunar material at costs comparable to Earth manufacture has an enormous overall cost advantage compared with objects lifted from Earth’s surface. The greatest value of the Moon lies neither in science nor in exploration, but in its material. And I am not talking about mining helium-3 as fusion reactor fuel. I doubt that will ever be economically feasible. I am talking about the possibility of extracting elements and minerals that can be processed into fuel or massive components of space apparatus. The production of oxygen in particular, the major component (by mass) of chemical rocket fuel, is potentially an important Lunar industry.

What are the preconditions for such an industry? That, it seems to me, must be a primary consideration of the long range planning for the Lunar agenda. Science studies provide the foundation for a materials production roadmap. Clever ideas have been advanced for the phased construction of electrical power sources

Here’s an interesting update on the ongoing legal war between BATF and the model rocketeers.

[Warning: not a permalink, so readers from the future beware]

Co-blogger Sam finishes up his tour of SpaceX. The discussion is less about rockets than about corporate cultures and marketing messages. There certainly seems to be a lot of momentum finally building in the media and the business community for the new space age.

Thomas James writes about libertarian versus statist approaches to space colonization. A different way of framing it might be a dynamist versus a stasist approach. Unfortunately, for the most part (at least in terms of planned expenditures, the small effort toward prizes and COTS notwithstanding), Mike Griffin’s NASA seems pretty firmly in the latter camp.

Thomas also has a new pillory of the space luddites up (his previous one spurred the post about libertarianism in space).

…from SpaceX. Clark Lindsey does have a little interesting news from India, though. It sounds like they may be getting smarter:

The stages appear to be powered by conventional rockets using “semi-cryogenic ” engines, e.g. LOX/kerosene. Previous Indian RLV designs that I have seen usually involved some sort of scramjet first stage.

That’s it for now–still busy demolishing the kitchen. I hope that I can finish that today, so that I can get to the rebuilding part, which I find much more enjoyable.

[Sunday evening update]

Alan Boyle has info in comments, and at his site.

SpaceX apparently had a successful static test firing at Kwajalein today. I assume that this means they’re go for launch sometime in the next few days.

[Update at 5 PM EST]

D’oh!

As a commenter points out, this is old news. I should have double checked it first.