Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Turning Bubble Wrap Into Satellites

8 Comments

Rob Hoyt told me about this when I was up in Seattle in November:

BOTHELL, WA., 17 March 2016 – NASA has announced that its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program has selected Tethers Unlimited, Inc. (TUI) for award of a Phase II contract to develop “Customizable, Recyclable ISS Packaging” (CRISSP). CRISSP is a suite of recyclable packaging materials, such as bags, bubble-wrap, and 3D-printed containers that are designed to cushion and protect equipment and supplies during launch to the International Space Station (ISS) and then be processed into 3D printer feedstock to support in-space manufacturing of tools, satellite components, and replacement parts.

TUI creates its patent-pending CRISSP materials using high-performance plastics that are chosen based upon their safety for use in space missions, their ease of recycling, and their suitability for use in 3D printing. “One really exciting aspect of the project is that 3D printing has enabled us to build novel vibration damping features into CRISSP,” said Dr. Rachel Muhlbauer, Principal Investigator on the SBIR effort. “Our Phase I effort demonstrated the ability of the CRISSP materials to absorb launch vibrations up to ten times better than traditional foam packaging materials, and the Phase II effort will develop and qualify a process for rapidly designing and manufacturing protective packaging that is customized for each payload.” To recycle CRISSP materials aboard the ISS, NASA will use TUI’s Positrusion™ Recycler, a suitcase-sized system that safely and automatically processes plastic waste into very high-quality filament for 3D printers.

“We are very excited to continue collaborating with NASA Marshall Space Flight Center’s In-space Manufacturing Project to develop a sustainable in-space manufacturing ecosystem for the ISS and future manned missions,” said Dr. Rob Hoyt, TUI’s CEO and Chief Scientist. “A typical cargo mission to the ISS carries about 25 pounds of packaging material. Currently, that’s 25 pounds of waste they have to dispose of. But with launch costs around $10,000 per pound, that material is worth roughly a quarter million dollars. The combination of CRISSP packaging materials and our Positrusion Recycler will enable NASA to transform this waste on the ISS into valuable feedstock to help manufacture and operate the next generation of exploration systems.”

Just think if the money being wasted on the giant rocket was going to more of this sort of thing.

History, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Merrick Garland

27 Comments

It’s too late for the administration to appeal to Constitutional norms:

the Obama administration, with its aggressive assertions of executive power, is in a poor position to appeal to constitutional norms. The administration showed a severe lack of respect for constitutional norms when, for example, contrary to decades of precedent that the Justice Department will defend any federal law with a plausible defense, it refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act; when the administration forced Common Core standards on local education without anything resembling explicit congressional approval or even debate, based on an aggressive reading of vague existing law; when the administration unilaterally changed immigration policy via executive order, after Congress failed to pass legislation that would have accomplished similar ends; when the president has simply refused to enforce provisions of Obamacare that proved politically problematic; and, for that matter, when the president advocated for and signed perhaps the only major piece of American social legislation (Obamacare) that not only failed to win widespread bipartisan support, but also attracted not a single vote in either house of Congress from the other party. More generally, President Obama has repeatedly promised to try to circumvent Congress using any arguably legal means available, on the rather extra-constitutional grounds, contrary to the norms attendant to the separation of powers, that “we can’t wait” for Congress to pass legislation that the president favors.

Beyond that, it’s not as “moderate” a pick as some are claiming. For instance, he opposed Heller and the 2nd Amendment, and would have disarmed residents of DC.

[Update a few minutes later]

And now for something completely different: Wolf Blitzer actually calls out Debbie Wasserman Schultz for hypocrisy.

Business, Economics, Space, Technology and Society

ULA Versus SpaceX

15 Comments

An interesting report by Peter Selding of a talk by one of ULA’s execs. It seems remarkably candid. Tory has really brought big changes to the company. But I don’t get this thinking:

“Don’t get me wrong: SpaceX has done some amazing stuff,” Tobey said. “The landing [in December] of that [Falcon 9] first stage at the Cape was nothing short of amazing. My wife and I were at Best Buy and watching it on my iPhone and I just got goose bumps. It was cool.

“Watching them smash it into the barge was fun, too,” he said of previous, and a subsequent, SpaceX attempts at landing the first stage.

“It’s getting tons of press. It’s extraordinarily, engineeringly cool – but it’s dumb,” Tobey said. “I mean: Really? You carried 100,000 pounds of fuel after deployment of the SES satellite [SpaceX’s March launch of the commercial SES-9 telecommunications satellite, to geostationary-transfer orbit] just to try to land on the barge.”

Let’s see. Propellant costs less than a buck a pound. So for less than a hundred grand, you get an entire stage, worth tens of millions, back intact. Doesn’t sound dumb to me.

[Update a few minutes later]

Some discussion on Twitter, including with Jeff Foust, indicating that perhaps he didn’t intend for that talk to be on the record. If so, that would account for the unusual candor.

[Update a few more minutes later]

OK, majority of upset on Twitter seems to be the analogy of having two fiances. And I can’t imagine that Eileen will be happy about that talk.

[Update a while later]

Oops.

[Afternoon update]

Tory has to clean up the mess.

[Thursday-morning update]

Aaaaaaand, he’s outta there.

Apparently, he’d only been in the job since September. He’d come there from Lockmart. Not sure if we should draw any conclusions from that.

[Update a few minutes later]

More from Peter Selding. Tobey was canned for a Kinsleyan gaffe — accidentally telling the truth in public. It’s the first time (and probably last) that I’ve ever seen anyone from ULA call the parents “dysfunctional.” But everyone in the business knows it’s true.

[Mid-morning update]

And now McCain is sticking his idiot nose in.

[Update a while later]

Here‘s Tim Fernholz’s take.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!