The House authorization committee seems determined to put off as far as possible the day that we get back there. Their proposed text makes the Senate bill look visionary, bold and enlightened. I’m just reading through it now. It seems to completely ignore the recommendations of the Augustine panel, except for one point. In the … Continue reading Speaking Of The Moon
When you’re trying to come up with a compromise in a hurry, it’s pretty much impossible to come up with a proposal that makes sense. “Major Tom” has already reviewed the numbers in the Senate Authorization, in comments over at Space Politics. Jeff’s site doesn’t seem to have comment permalinks, so I’ll move it to … Continue reading The Budget Is Busted
From John Kavanaugh: “…capable of lifting at least 75 metric tons — should be largely derived from shuttle systems and likely would use solid rocket boosters…” Space launch design by committee. I can’t imagine the Pentagon’s reaction if the Senate Armed Services Committee specified that the Joint Strike Fighter must be derived from F-16 heritage … Continue reading Comment Du Jour
It looks like the Senate is moving forward on a NASA authorization bill: In its current version, the bill would direct NASA to fly one more space shuttle mission in the second half of next year. The bill would also in effect restore full capabilities to the Constellation program’s Orion crew capsule by telling NASA … Continue reading A Pig’s Breakfast
Daniel Handlin has a critique of the new space policy, over at The Space Review today. Many, indeed most, of his concerns are valid, though I think that he overstates the concerns of safety and human rating. All of the plausible vehicles — Delta, Atlas, and even Falcon 9, are most of the way there … Continue reading Problems With The Policy
I haven’t dug into either the programmatics or the politics of this, but Jeff Masters says that the Senate is about to cut NOAA’s budget and move the funds to criminal alien assistance. I don’t live in south Florida any more (hallelujiah!) but I think that tracking hurricanes is a higher priority for that money. … Continue reading Saving Scatterometers
OK, I pledged to be nice to the NASA administrator until after Christmas. Now that it’s two days after, first let us consider his mighty fan club, including (shockingly) his adoring wife. Who would have thought? When the petition originally went up, I wish that I’d captured a screen shot of the signatures, because some … Continue reading Mike’s Dream Home
I don’t recall which one, but a few years ago, the mood at the Space Access Conference was pretty somber. X-33 had cratered without even flying, X-34 the same, the dreams of a “Teledesic winter,” in which the skies would be blackened by LEO comsats and RLVs to deliver and service them, had been shown … Continue reading A Legislative Breakthrough?
I’m listening to the Senate hearings on the future of the space program. O’Keefe and Gehman testified earlier, at which the administrator continued to talk about how hard it is to build launch systems, and how OSP is the best we can do right now. Unfortunately, some of the senators were sympathetic to this, and … Continue reading Hearing Report
OK, I was gentle with Easterbrook. But Bruce Moomaw is totally out to lunch with this piece. Everything he knows is wrong, other than the title. The Space Age Born Of The Cold War Is Over Today’s appalling Shuttle tragedy proves — once again — that manned spaceflight, at this point in history, is not … Continue reading Bruce Moomaw Gets It Not At All