Keith Cowing disagrees with (retiring) John Young’s comments (valid, in my opinion) that it’s time to accept the risk of the Shuttle and start flying again:

…to just throw up your hands, as Young has done, and say nothing has changed – and that its not worth the effort to try and get better – is defeatism of the first order. It is curious that he feels this way when you recall that a contemporary of his, Gene Kranz, coined the phrase “failure is not an option”.

It’s not defeatism–it’s realism. Shuttle’s safety flaws are intrinsic, and really unfixable for the most part, without spending much more money on it than a new, much better launch system would cost. I’ve always believed that the CAIB recommendations about what was needed to return to flight were unrealistic, and at some point NASA (and the administration) will have to admit to that as well, or stop flying. We know we’re going to retire it (so we don’t have to husband the resource of orbiters as hard as we have in the past), and we’ve got plenty of astronauts willing to fly it, so we should either start flying it again and getting some use out of it, or shut the whole thing down and apply the savings toward something with a future. As it is now, we’ve the worst of both worlds–spending billions on it every year, with no activity at all other than trying to put lipstick on a pig.

As for the quote about failure not being an option, it all sounds very inspiring, but like the Kennedy quote of “because it’s hard,” it doesn’t really make much sense when one actually parses it. As someone once said, when failure isn’t an option, success gets pretty damned expensive. If we can’t take risks, there’s no point in even attempting to venture into the cosmos.

The Economist has a serious article about the state of the space tourism industry at the end of 2004, with new details on both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin. I was confused by this bit, though:

In September, news emerged that Robert Bigelow, who runs Bigelow Aerospace, a firm based in Los Angeles, was going to back a $50m prize modelled on the $10m Ansari X prize that led to the creation of SpaceShipOne.

As far as I know, Bigelow Aerospace is now, and always has been, based in Las Vegas.

Here’s some evidence that NASA is starting to take the policy to retire the Shuttle seriously.

Alan Binder is too sanguine about the prospects for extracting lunar oxygen in the absence of ice at the poles:

“It

Is, according to NASA Watch, Bob Bigelow. Makes sense to me, but I don’t know how influential he is with the administration.

Sorry for the short notice–I should have said something sooner, but if you can get out of town, and the sky is clear, the best meteor shower of the year is tonight.

Jay Manifold has more, and actually had it over a week ago.

Again, sorry.

That’s the rumor. Jeff Foust has the story here and here, as does NASA Watch.

I find this a little surprising, given that he’s just gotten the budget go ahead for the new exploration initiative. I would have thought that he’d at least want to see the program off to a good start (though perhaps he thinks it already is).

What’s most surprising is where he’s going–to academia. There were rumors throughout his tenure at NASA that he was being groomed to replace Rumsfeld in a second term. Either those rumors weren’t true, or the fact that Rumsfeld is staying for now has thrown a wrench into them, or the administration is unhappy with him for some aspect of his job performance (Columbia? The Hubble fiasco?).

In that case, it’s sort of like the old “up or out” philosophy for military brass. Get passed over for your next scheduled promotion, and you might as well take your retirement.

Fortunately, with the new initiative and the budgets, it’s a more appealing job to many competent people than it’s been in the past. In previous vacancies, the running joke was that the administrator had to be someone smart enough to do the job, and dumb enough to take it. That may not be the case any more.

[Monday morning update]

A commenter wants to draft Pete Worden. Now Keith Cowing is reporting that this is, indeed, one of the names being discussed. I wonder who the “well-known millionaire” is. Dennis Tito? Paul Allen?

It would certainly be an interesting appointment, and reasonable payback for the shabby treatment (in my opinion) that he got from Don Rumsfeld’s Pentagon. If it were to happen (it seems unlikely to me), NASA would for the first time have as administrator a member of the alt.space movement.

That’s the rumor. Jeff Foust has the story here and here, as does NASA Watch.

I find this a little surprising, given that he’s just gotten the budget go ahead for the new exploration initiative. I would have thought that he’d at least want to see the program off to a good start (though perhaps he thinks it already is).

What’s most surprising is where he’s going–to academia. There were rumors throughout his tenure at NASA that he was being groomed to replace Rumsfeld in a second term. Either those rumors weren’t true, or the fact that Rumsfeld is staying for now has thrown a wrench into them, or the administration is unhappy with him for some aspect of his job performance (Columbia? The Hubble fiasco?).

In that case, it’s sort of like the old “up or out” philosophy for military brass. Get passed over for your next scheduled promotion, and you might as well take your retirement.

Fortunately, with the new initiative and the budgets, it’s a more appealing job to many competent people than it’s been in the past. In previous vacancies, the running joke was that the administrator had to be someone smart enough to do the job, and dumb enough to take it. That may not be the case any more.

[Monday morning update]

A commenter wants to draft Pete Worden. Now Keith Cowing is reporting that this is, indeed, one of the names being discussed. I wonder who the “well-known millionaire” is. Dennis Tito? Paul Allen?

It would certainly be an interesting appointment, and reasonable payback for the shabby treatment (in my opinion) that he got from Don Rumsfeld’s Pentagon. If it were to happen (it seems unlikely to me), NASA would for the first time have as administrator a member of the alt.space movement.

That’s the rumor. Jeff Foust has the story here and here, as does NASA Watch.

I find this a little surprising, given that he’s just gotten the budget go ahead for the new exploration initiative. I would have thought that he’d at least want to see the program off to a good start (though perhaps he thinks it already is).

What’s most surprising is where he’s going–to academia. There were rumors throughout his tenure at NASA that he was being groomed to replace Rumsfeld in a second term. Either those rumors weren’t true, or the fact that Rumsfeld is staying for now has thrown a wrench into them, or the administration is unhappy with him for some aspect of his job performance (Columbia? The Hubble fiasco?).

In that case, it’s sort of like the old “up or out” philosophy for military brass. Get passed over for your next scheduled promotion, and you might as well take your retirement.

Fortunately, with the new initiative and the budgets, it’s a more appealing job to many competent people than it’s been in the past. In previous vacancies, the running joke was that the administrator had to be someone smart enough to do the job, and dumb enough to take it. That may not be the case any more.

[Monday morning update]

A commenter wants to draft Pete Worden. Now Keith Cowing is reporting that this is, indeed, one of the names being discussed. I wonder who the “well-known millionaire” is. Dennis Tito? Paul Allen?

It would certainly be an interesting appointment, and reasonable payback for the shabby treatment (in my opinion) that he got from Don Rumsfeld’s Pentagon. If it were to happen (it seems unlikely to me), NASA would for the first time have as administrator a member of the alt.space movement.

There aren’t very many things that I find appealing about living in Florida, but being able to see launches is one of them. The inaugural flight of the Delta IV Heavy is scheduled this afternoon. For those not living as close to Cape Canaveral as I do, Boeing will have a webcast, starting about 2 PM EST.

[Update in the evening]

Yes, the launch was scrubbed, for weather. Apparently winds aloft.

We don’t have time to drive up there and back every day until they get it off, so I guess we’ll miss it. But we did have a nice day. We saw some birds up in the Merritt Island Refuge, and took a leisurely drive back down the coast along A1A. The hurricane damage from Frances and Jeanne along the coast in southern Brevard and St. Lucie counties (which were basically ground zero, in terms of being on the northern eyewall for both storms) remains impressive. Many houses along the shore were gutted, and we saw lots of tarps on roofs.