Keith Cowing seems to think that Stephen Hawking is being inconsistent:

When asked about his thoughts on President Bush’s proposal to put a man on Mars within 10 years, Hawking simply replied: “Stupid.”

This, in the context of the recent story that Dr. Hawking thinks that we must colonize space for our long-term survival.

I don’t see what the problem is. It’s possible to both believe that we should colonize space, and that the current policy is a poor way to do so, for the expenditures being proposed. I can attest to this, because I do in fact believe that.

Keith Cowing seems to think that Stephen Hawking is being inconsistent:

When asked about his thoughts on President Bush’s proposal to put a man on Mars within 10 years, Hawking simply replied: “Stupid.”

This, in the context of the recent story that Dr. Hawking thinks that we must colonize space for our long-term survival.

I don’t see what the problem is. It’s possible to both believe that we should colonize space, and that the current policy is a poor way to do so, for the expenditures being proposed. I can attest to this, because I do in fact believe that.

Over at Volokh’s place. It may not have been as big a kaboom as originally reported. Certainly (on the evidence, thankfully) not an earth-shattering one. Or even a Norway-shattering one.

Mark Whittington has a strange complaint about a Russian space program:

However, like a lot of other Russian schemes, it seems to me to depend on getting a hold of a lot of other peoples’ money.

In what way does that differentiate it from “NASA schemes”?

A meteorite struck Norway a couple days ago, releasing many kilotons of energy–equivalent to the Hiroshima bomb in explosive power.

Fortunately it was out in the boonies. If it had hit a major city it would have killed many thousands of people, and if it had struck in the ocean it could have generated a nasty tsunami. And we continue to do very little to defend ourselves from them.

We were lucky this time, but we shouldn’t continue to count on luck. The sooner we become a truly spacefaring country and planet (and NASA’s current plans do little to advance us in that direction), the sooner we’ll be able to manage these things.

NASA hasn’t completely given up on propellant depots. At least, not all of it.

NASA hasn’t completely given up on propellant depots. At least, not all of it.

NASA hasn’t completely given up on propellant depots. At least, not all of it.

Michael Belfiore reports that winners of COTS contracts will be ineligible for America’s Space Prize.

This makes sense. Bigelow probably wants to encourage as many players as possible, and he wants to encourage commercial space companies, so this spreads the wealth, increasing diversity in space access providers. And COTS winners don’t really need the prize money anyway. It’s the same philosophy that disqualified people from winning the X-Prize using government-developed hardware.

Brian “Rocket Guy” Walker’s latest thrill scheme is to launch himself with a giant crossbow.

Hey, it’s reusable…