…is on the verge of being untreatable.
Wonderful.
Category Archives: Technology and Society
Neil Degrasse Tyson’s Historical Knowledge
No, not about Bruno, but about the history of exploration:
There is no nice, clean line between private “buck making” and high-minded government exploration just for the sake of it. From the Wright Brothers making the key advances in aviation to IBM funded Nobel Prize winning basic research, innumerable breakthroughs in science and technology have been led by private non-governmental ventures.
Yes. It’s the post-war government funding that’s been an anomaly, historically. Fortunately, when it comes to spaceflight, that era is ending.
SpaceX Mission Reliability
General Shelton says they’re not ready for prime time:
Launches of NASA cargo to the International Space Station, including one planned early Sunday, don’t guarantee SpaceX is ready to launch military satellites, the head of Air Force Space Command said Tuesday in Cape Canaveral.
If a rocket failed, the loss of a national security satellite potentially worth more than $1.5 billion would be a bigger setback than losing food, clothing and other station supplies, Gen. William Shelton told the National Space Club Florida Committee.
“So there’s a big difference,” he said.
This is one reason that talk about “human rating” an Atlas (or Delta) is silly. If it’s reliable enough for a $1.5B satellite, it’s reliable enough to carry crew. All it ever needed was failure onset detection. And when SpaceX starts flying crew, the general’s argument will be much less strong.
Cheap Desalination
…through graphene oxide?
This would be a game changer.
OK, looks like someone broke it.
The Malaysian Air Flight
How can an airplane just disappear?
Some people think that with satellites we have an “every sparrow that falls” omniscience, but we’re not there yet.
Elon’s Mars Plans
A detailed technical breakdown. Pretty ambitious.
Unless I missed it, there was one important aspect not discussed in trading kerosene versus methane. The latter would be much easier to manufacture on Phobos/Deimos or the Martian surface.
Russia’s Space Program
It needs NASA a lot more than NASA needs it.
That’s certainly true in the longer term. I don’t know if Putin understands that, though, or cares enough to use it as leverage in Ukraine.
The Path Forward In Space
Dennis Wingo has the 2014 edition. Long but worth a read. I disagree with him on the first flight for commercial crew. I think it may happen as soon as next year.
Space Tourism
Eileen Collins explains why it will be successful.