On a day that over a dozen sherpas were lost in an avalanche, thoughts from Keith Cowing on the parallels between Everest expeditions and space exploration. I discuss this in the book.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
John Houboult
In November 1961, Houbolt took the bold step of skipping proper channels and writing a 9-page private letter directly to incoming Associate Administrator Dr. Robert C. Seamans. Describing himself somewhat melodramatically “as a voice in the wilderness,” Houbolt protested LOR’s exclusion from the NASA debate on the Apollo mission profile. “Do we want to go to the moon or not?” the Langley engineer asked. “Why is Nova, with its ponderous size simply just accepted, and why is a much less grandiose scheme involving rendezvous ostracized or put on the defensive? I fully realize that contacting you in this manner is somewhat unorthodox,” Houbolt admitted, “but the issues at stake are crucial enough to us all that an unusual course is warranted.” Houbolt clearly saw that the giant Nova rocket and the expensive and complex Earth orbit rendezvous plan were clearly not a realistic option–especially if the mission was to be accomplished anywhere close to President Kennedy’s timetable. While conducting a rendezvous in orbit around the Moon was going to be a challenge, the weight, cost and savings of using LOR were obvious once one realized that LOR was not fundamentally much more difficult than Earth orbit rendezvous. This insights, and Houbolt’s brave and energetic advocacy of it, made all the difference.
It’s just a shame that they didn’t do earth-orbit rendezvous as well with smaller vehicles. We could have avoided the Saturn V and the Apollo Cargo Cult.
Russia And The ISS
The interview is available on Youtube now.
Reusability
Alan Boyle has a story on today’s hoped-for test of first-stage recovery by SpaceX.
[Update a few minutes later]
Amanda Wills interviewed Elon last night.
Geopolitics In Space
I talked to Glenn Reynolds yesterday about our Russian entanglement. Just civil, though, not the military space problem.
[Afternoon update]
Space News had a blistering editorial on Monday, excoriating the fools on the Hill:
Those who bemoan NASA’s reliance on Russia, yet shortchange the very program designed to fix that problem, are at the same time adamant that the agency spend nearly $3 billion per year on SLS and Orion, vehicles that for all their advertised capability still have no place to go. Their size and cost make them poorly suited for space station missions, even as a backup to commercial crew taxis, and in any case the first SLS-Orion crewed test flight won’t happen before 2021.
NASA currently lacks an independent crew launching capability because of decisions made a decade ago, the consequences of which were fully understood and accepted at the time. The longer this situation lasts, however, the more culpable the current group of decision-makers will become.
In that vein, the current criticisms of NASA and the White House might be viewed as a pre-emptive strike by lawmakers who sense their own culpability. But in pressing arguments that fail to stand up to even modest scrutiny, they not only undermine their credibility, they give NASA cover to pursue a Commercial Crew Program approach that might not be sustainable.
What a pathetic lot they are.
[Bumped]
3-D Printed Guns
Should we be afraid of them?
…should we be afraid to live in a world where anyone can afford the equipment to manufacture a gun in his or her basement? I hope not—because that’s the world we live in now. Guns are comparatively simple devices. In fact, plenty of custom firearms are manufactured today using equipment that wouldn’t be out of place in a basement. Just as the sets of “plastic guns” and “3D-printed guns” are not identical, the sets of “3D-printed guns” and “homemade guns” are not identical. At the moment, virtually every homemade gun is constructed using some technology other than 3D printing.
Yes, as with most hoplophobia, this is silly.
Blue Origin
This looks interesting. It seems to have both similarities and differences with Falcon/Dragon. Similarities: reusable first stage, vertical landing, pusher escape. Differences: Biconic capsule, hydrogen propulsion. Is the first stage hydrogen?
The EBook Is Out
For those who have been waiting for an electronic version, it is now available at Google Play, currently priced at about eight bucks. For those who don’t do Google, I’ll be getting it up for Nook and Kindle (and possible iTunes) as well in the next few days.
[Cross posted at Safe Is Not An Option]
Brain Dead, Or Just Resting?
Unsurprisingly, we don’t know as much about vegetative states as many think they do. Unfortunately, as with cryonics, a lot of the medical profession take the easy way out, ethically speaking.
We Once Landed On The Moon
Forty-five years later, does it matter?
To the degree that people have learned the false lesson from it that we cannot go beyond low earth orbit without building giant rockets, it was a setback.