Happy tenth anniversary to Jeff, who is asking the big space policy questions for the next ten years. [Update a few minutes later] I have to comment on this: “NASA needs to have more than one half of one percent of the federal budget,” Bingham said at the FAA conference last week, emphasizing he was … Continue reading The Space Review
Hey, put me down as all in favor of a Lagrange-point base — I’ve advocated it for years. But I’d like to see the trade study that says EML-2 versus EML-1. My preference is for the latter, but NASA seems focused on the former. I haven’t seen any explanation as to why. To my mind … Continue reading Home, Home On Lagrange
I don’t know, but here’s the worst thing about him. He would never kill the Senate Launch System. He’d be in ATK’s pocket.
Observations over at The American Thinker: A key characteristic of the reality of fascist thinking is rampant cronyism and corruption. Certain capitalists, wishing to ingratiate themselves with the state, are willing to fund the election of those in power in exchange for favorable government contracts and avoidance of regulatory wrath. Recently, much of Wall Street, … Continue reading Obama’s Fascist Economy
…from the Space Access Society: NASA HQ just gave in to prolonged Congressional pressure and announced a vehicle configuration for the SLS “Senate Launch System” heavy-lift launch vehicle project. The project will be run under traditional NASA practices; the cost multiplier over doing the job commercially will thus presumably start out on the rough order … Continue reading SLS Thoughts
Why the return trip seems shorter. [Update a few minutes later] Speaking of deep-space missions (not that it’s likely to ever fly any, or fly at all), Chris Bergin has a pretty extensive write-up on the Senate Launch System.
As a result of the disastrous initial markup of the House appropriation for NASA last week, the Space Access Society, the Space Frontier Foundation, and Tea Party in Space have all put out alerts for everyone to call your Congressman (extra points if your congressman is one of the chairs of the appropriations committee or … Continue reading Space Political Action Alerts
For years, since its founding in the wake of the Challenger disaster by June Scobee (not June Scobee Rogers), widow of perished commander Dick Scobee, the Challenger Center has been a strong defender of the Shuttle program and traditional NASA human spaceflight. So this press release supporting commercial human spaceflight is sort of a big … Continue reading The Ground Continues To Shift
The end of Constellation brings out the same flawed arguments in comments. Yes, if one poured enough money into Constellation, no doubt it could have been made to “work,” if by that you mean get a few government employees to the moon at a billion dollars a ticket. It never had a prayer of contributing … Continue reading Bitterness, And Denial
Tea Party In Space praises Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein. Hey, it’s the best thing they’ve ever done for the space program (a low bar for them, or California Democrats in general), though they’re certainly doing it at the behest of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in Canoga Park and Aerojet in Sacramento, not because they … Continue reading Strange Bedfellows