Category Archives: Space

Come See The Show

…if you’re in the Salt Lake City area today. Scott Lowther writes:

If you’re in the Salt Lake area tomorrow, come see the RSRM firing at ATK-Thiokol., scheduled for 1 PM. I’ve seen two… impressive as all get-out. Plus, it brings in every bald eagle for forty miles.

Why the eagles?

The two theories that do make a measure of sense to me are:

1) Some form of curiousity at the *extremely* loud noise with the very low tones.

2) The ground vibrations that are set up *may* cause subsurface critters for miles around to come boiling out… rats, mice, voles, snakes, etc, and the eagles have learned there are easy meals to be had when that particular dinner bell rings.

[Update late morning[

Where in the heck did the phrase “all get-out” come from, anyway. What does that mean?

Way Too Late For That

Fred Kiesche asks if we can keep politics out of the CEV program.

Sorry, but politics intruded as soon as Dr. Griffin decided to build Shuttle-derived hardware as the launch vehicles, in order to assuage the politicians in Alabama, Utah and Florida who were worried about the loss of Shuttle jobs. Politics intruded with the decision to complete the useless (or at least, very poor value for the money) ISS, to maintain the international commitments.

It’s completely unrealistic to expect a massive taxpayer-funded space bureaucracy to be unencumbered by politics.

Back To CA

I’ve got a 7 AM flight, and just got cleaned up from demolishing the kitchen, so I don’t have time to comment on this “Blackstar” story. Fortunately, over at RLV News, it’s all Blackstar, all the time. Clark Lindsey has comments here, here and here.

I agree with Clark–it’s a pretty fishy story, with a lot of inconsistencies. I remain a Missourian on this one for now.

[Monday morning update, from LA]

Jim Oberg has an update at MSNBC.

Virgin Galactic Survey

Virgin Galactic mailed me a survey which you can access. Answer truthfully. I (owner of SpaceShot) am not like the competitors that Julian Simon talks about in his mailorder books that tries to muck up competitors’ surveys. They inquire about pricing for Virgin Galactic Quest in $10 increments from 0-60+. Drop me a line at transterrestrial@dinkin.com or comment what you think tournament entries for a trip to space should cost. Also tell me what kind of profit margin you think would be fair. And whether a bundle of more than one entry would be OK. Note that credit card fixed charges are $0.30 + 2-3% at paypal which has a restrictive skill games policy and $0.40 or more elsewhere so credit cards will eat up 6-7% of a $10 charge, but only 4-5% of a $20 charge. Can someone give me a quote for the cost of building and analyzing one of those surveys? (I don’t want to buy one, just validate my decision not to.)

Not Just Ignorance

I don’t know whether to categorize this as “Space” or “Media Criticism” (often the case, given how often the media get space issues, like most issues, wrong).

Jeff Foust has a follow-up on the Wired News article that said March Storm was a front for people who wanted to militarize space. I was originally willing to give the reporter the benefit of the doubt, and just consider it shoddy reporting, and him a shoddy reporter. But it’s clear now that he had an agenda (something that should probably have been clear at the time, given that he took a nutcase like Bruce Gagnon far too seriously). As far as I’m concerned, he has zero credibility from this point forward.

An Existence Proof

Clark Lindsey sees some reason for hope that the new rocket companies may be able to achieve their cost (and business) goals. It would be interesting to see what conventional aerospace costing models would have predicted for RDT&E and ops costs for a government Eclipse program. We have to break out of the cost-plus culture, and ESAS does nothing toward that end.