While I continue to do thought gathering (and getting ready to move, while starting a new job doing technology evaluation for the Jupiter Icy Moons project), Clark Lindsey has his usual comprehensive report on this past weekend’s Space Access Conference. Now that he’s done the heavy lifting, I’ll try to fill in any gaps from what I can recall, hopefully tomorrow.

At first reading, the only slight deficit I see is inadequate coverage of Jim Muncy’s talk on the new commercial space transportation legislation, which had a number of key items worth repeating, and of which I’d been previously unaware. Hopefully I’ll rectify that manana, though if Clark has good notes, he’s obviously welcome to flesh out his already excellent report with those details.

Based on his trip to Phoenix this past weekend, Alan Boyle lays out a potentially interesting schedule for private manned spaceflight activities in the coming months. I’m still gathering my own thoughts on the conference.

In the midst of an article in which he recommends that the administration encourage the Chinese to race us to the moon, Dwayne Day writes: “There is nothing that a human can do in low Earth orbit, other than the study of other humans, that a robot cannot do better.”

I hope that he didn’t give very much thought to that statement, because it’s demonstrably untrue. Could a robot have done this better? How about this? Or especially this, which happened over three decades ago?

I doubt that we have the robotic capability today to do those things, let alone at the time. Dwayne can argue if he likes that they weren’t worth doing (I would disagree in all cases, especially in the case of Skylab), but to say that there’s nothing that robots can’t do better than humans in LEO is…mistaken.

Interestingly, of course, this is being discussed as an alternate means to save Hubble, but it will clearly be a technical challenge, and it’s not being done because it’s a better way, but because NASA is unwilling to send a crew.

In the midst of an article in which he recommends that the administration encourage the Chinese to race us to the moon, Dwayne Day writes: “There is nothing that a human can do in low Earth orbit, other than the study of other humans, that a robot cannot do better.”

I hope that he didn’t give very much thought to that statement, because it’s demonstrably untrue. Could a robot have done this better? How about this? Or especially this, which happened over three decades ago?

I doubt that we have the robotic capability today to do those things, let alone at the time. Dwayne can argue if he likes that they weren’t worth doing (I would disagree in all cases, especially in the case of Skylab), but to say that there’s nothing that robots can’t do better than humans in LEO is…mistaken.

Interestingly, of course, this is being discussed as an alternate means to save Hubble, but it will clearly be a technical challenge, and it’s not being done because it’s a better way, but because NASA is unwilling to send a crew.

In the midst of an article in which he recommends that the administration encourage the Chinese to race us to the moon, Dwayne Day writes: “There is nothing that a human can do in low Earth orbit, other than the study of other humans, that a robot cannot do better.”

I hope that he didn’t give very much thought to that statement, because it’s demonstrably untrue. Could a robot have done this better? How about this? Or especially this, which happened over three decades ago?

I doubt that we have the robotic capability today to do those things, let alone at the time. Dwayne can argue if he likes that they weren’t worth doing (I would disagree in all cases, especially in the case of Skylab), but to say that there’s nothing that robots can’t do better than humans in LEO is…mistaken.

Interestingly, of course, this is being discussed as an alternate means to save Hubble, but it will clearly be a technical challenge, and it’s not being done because it’s a better way, but because NASA is unwilling to send a crew.

But there’s a lot of non-blogging stuff to catch up on. I’ll try to get a post and pics up of the conference in the next day or two, but no promises. Bottom line–there’re lots of exciting things happening, and the days that NASA dominates manned spaceflight are looking increasingly numbered.

Thanks to Michael Mealling, I’ve got connectivity enough to announce that the FAA presented XCOR with their launch license this morning, at the Space Access Conference. It was the 180th day after completion of their licence application submittal, so they brought it in under the wire.

More later, but further details can be found at Michael’s wiki. Up to the minute pictures are also available on the wiki page.

[Update on Sunday evening]

If you haven’t seen it, Alan Boyle, who was in attendance with me (and who I greatly enjoyed meeting), has a more extensive story.

I’d think that a planetary protection officer would have a much larger portfolio than just worrying about extraterrestrial biological contamination. If he’s not responsible for detecting and fending off errant asteroids and comets, who is?

As though I wasn’t busy enough, I find this at NASA Watch (I also heard about it from a friend at Boeing).

White papers are invited that address initial challenges facing Project Constellation and Project Prometheus in general, and the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) in particular. Enclosed are the key focus area, issues, and suggested white paper topics. White papers that examine one or more of the topics are invited. Papers that address other important aspects (in a manner consistent with the information requested below) are also welcome. Viable white papers should be consistent with the January 14, 2004, U.S. Space Exploration Vision, as well as with generally accepted laws of physics. Innovative approaches

I haven’t had time to read it, but the Cap’n of the Clueless has what looks like an interesting post on warfare in space.

I’ve always found it a little ironic that in Star Trek, and most other science fiction, the model of the interplanetary/interstellar military is the navy. That makes sense, because we generally, or at least popularly, think of spaceships rather than spaceplanes, and the relatively slow maneuvers and docking, and indeed the nature of outer space itself, make the ocean a much more apt analogy than the air.

Yet in this current time-space continuum, the Pentagon has assigned space to the Air Force, and they’ve made notably little progress with it. I suspect that once we solve the earth-to-orbit problem, and the atmosphere becomes a temporary hindrance on the way to the rest of the universe, that the naval model will in fact prevail.