John Derbyshire doesn’t think much of (what I’m guessing is) Keith Cowing’s emails:

I had some exchanges with one fellow who took strong exception to my Space Shuttle piece. “It must really suck being you,” he asserted. Now, this is pretty lame on a first occurrence; but in our subsequent exchanges he just couldn’t think of any way to improve on it. “Like I said, it must really suck being you,” he’d close. It dawned on me at last that the guy thinks this is the most crushing, most devastating put-down that has yet been devised from the English language. I weep for these people.

Which reminds me that I still plan to critique the piece myself.

I was going to comment on this strange and hyperbolic broadside at the Shuttle, and the manned space program in general from John Derbyshire, but Mark Whittington (who really should spell check his posts) and Clark Lindsey have preempted much of what I would have written.

Briefly, while I agree with his conclusions, he gets there by accident, because his premises are mostly wrong, and his numbers exaggerated beyond any semblance of reality.

I was going to comment on this strange and hyperbolic broadside at the Shuttle, and the manned space program in general from John Derbyshire, but Mark Whittington (who really should spell check his posts) and Clark Lindsey have preempted much of what I would have written.

Briefly, while I agree with his conclusions, he gets there by accident, because his premises are mostly wrong, and his numbers exaggerated beyond any semblance of reality.

I was going to comment on this strange and hyperbolic broadside at the Shuttle, and the manned space program in general from John Derbyshire, but Mark Whittington (who really should spell check his posts) and Clark Lindsey have preempted much of what I would have written.

Briefly, while I agree with his conclusions, he gets there by accident, because his premises are mostly wrong, and his numbers exaggerated beyond any semblance of reality.

Dwayne Day has an interesting article on the degree to which the space station can be considered a success, but I would have thought that he knew that it was mostly made of aluminum and composites–very little steel involved.

Jim Oberg says that too many people are hyperventilating over space weapons.

Jim Oberg says that too many people are hyperventilating over space weapons.

Jim Oberg says that too many people are hyperventilating over space weapons.

No surprises. They picked the two bidders:

Phase 2, covering final CEV design and production, was scheduled to start with a down-selection to a single industry team in 2008. To reduce or eliminate the gap between the Shuttle’s retirement in 2010 and an operational CEV, the Phase 2 down-selection is planned for 2006.

Results of NASA Administrator Michael Griffin’s Exploration Systems Architectural Study will be incorporated into a Call For Improvements later this year to invite Phase 2 proposals from the Phase 1 contractors.

While, as I said, not a surprise, based on all the scuttlebutt, this really turns up the heat on the contractors. They don’t have four years to convince NASA as to who has the better concept and ability to execute it–they have (possibly less than) one. There will be no fly off, and they’ll now basically write new proposals under contract.

I had heard last Thursday that some kind of announcement on the CEV contract was imminent, expected any day. According to Keith Cowing, there will be some word this afternoon. I’ll update when I hear something.

[Update a couple minutes later]

I’m guessing they’re waiting for the market to close at 4:30 so they don’t influence late traders.

[Update at 3:20 PM EDT]

In this Reuters piece that quotes Jim Albaugh of Boeing as saying he expects an announcement today, Dr. Griffin says something at the Paris Air Show that I find a little disturbing:

“We have enough money to put people back on the moon in that [2015-2020] timeframe,” he said. “The model that I have is that we should build a lunar outpost similar to the kinds of multinational outposts we have in Antarctica.”

Antarctica is a very bad model, for two reasons. First of all, Antarctica is basically off limits to mineral exploitation, a precedent that would be disastrous if applied to the moon and, in the words of the infamous Moon Treaty, “other celestial bodies.” Second, Antarctica is focused primarily on scienctific research. Such a mindset isn’t necessarily conducive to the other uses to which a base might be put.

Basically, it sounds like he wants to dust off his old plans from the early 1990s for “First Lunar Outpost” or FLO, that he developed before he left NASA, just before the president’s father’s Space Exploration Initiative died.

I just think that by the year 2015, it’s going to be very clear that the future, and probably present, of space transportation will not lie in putting up throwaway capsules on throwaway rockets, whether Shuttle derived, or EELV derived. What he’s proposing is just picking up where Apollo left off, but there’s no reason to think that that will be any more sustainable than Apollo ultimately was. It’s certainly unlikely to be much more affordable.

Then there’s this:

NASA is weighing up competing bids for the so-called Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), the successor to the space shuttle, which will be retired in 2010. The new vehicle is expected to be compatible with the International Space Station and to play a role in a manned mission to the moon.

This is a little misleading. It’s not going to succeed the Shuttle in the sense that it will perform all the same functions as Shuttle does. In that sense, there will never (praise the heavens) be a successor to the Shuttle, because its overspecification was one of the things that made it such a programmatic disaster.

Also, the “expected to be compatible with the ISS” is a new requirement, not addressed in any of the proposals submitted, because it wasn’t required at the time the RFP came out (a result of the fact that Griffin hadn’t had time to influence it, being newly arrived). But now the first task of the contractors (and it would be surprising if that turns out to be anyone other than the Boeing/Northrop-Grumman team and the Lockmart team) will almost certainly be to redesign their respective concepts to satisfy this need.

[Update at 4:35]

Keith Cowing is saying that Lockmart has won something. I don’t see anything at their web site yet. That doesn’t (yet) mean that Boeing/Northrop-Grumman hasn’t, of course.