Dana Rohrabacher has introduced his proposed legislation to amend the Space Act, in order to redirect NASA toward space settlement and development.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Space Access
I’ve arrived at the conference. Looks like a great turnout, and a lot of familiar faces. A lot of seem to be getting older. Will Pomerantz gave an overview of future plans for Virgin Galactic, and took a lot of questions at the end. Still unclear what the future of propulsion is for SS1, though he said he thinks that they’re going back to rubber. Follow Doug Messier (@spacecom) for more details. Many of the questions were his.
Blue Origin
Powered by a BE-3 engine, the spacecraft flew to 307,000 feet, the edge of space, and returned smoothly to the ground. The company said it was able to recover the reusable spacecraft./blockquote>
I believe that the BE-3 is the smaller version of the BE-4 that will power the new ULA rocket. So it’s a LOX/LNG vehicle. They didn’t recover the propulsion system, but don’t seem concerned about it. Like SpaceX, now that they’re flying again, they’ll continually improve. A very auspicious event as I get ready to drive to Phoenix this morning for the Space Access conference, which starts this afternoon.
The RD-180 Replacement
Basically, as it is with NASA and SLS, Congress is forcing the Air Force to waste money on an engine that ULA doesn’t want, or need.
Obesity
A cardiologist says that it’s not caused by lack of exercise, it’s caused by sugar and carbs.
I think the comparison with the tobacco industry is apt, but I disagree that it should be regulated. We just need to educate.
A Space Maverick
Somehow, though, I don’t think Pete is ready to retire.
Exos Aerospace
…are doing a Kickstarter.
Age Of Ultron
A review, at The Telegraph. Some spoilers.
Climate “Denial”
It is clear from all this that Cook et al. are UNFCCC/IPCC ideologues. There is nothing wrong per se with ideology; it is the ideologues that are the problem – absence of doubt, intolerance of debate, appeal to authority, desire to convince others of the ideological “truth”, and a willingness to punish those that don’t concur. They need to look in the mirror and understand their own motivated reasoning.
Phil Plait is such a disappointment on this topic.
Space Habitats
NASA is finally taking a sensible approach to Congress’s unrealistic goals:
“What we’re trying to do is maximize commercial applications of these technologies while getting an impact for our requirements as well,” says Jason Crusan, director of advanced exploration systems in the Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) directorate at NASA headquarters. “There may be commercial applications for habitation in low Earth orbit at some point. We’d like to understand what industry thinks about that. At the same time we have real requirements for habitation in deep space, and there have been some commonalities in that.”
NASA (for now) has to waste billions on SLS/Orion, because it’s the law. They’ll continue to do so in the hope that it will satisfy the fools on the Hill, while doing sensible procurements for hardware they actually need to get beyond earth orbit.