Gregory Anderson repeats a long-time theme of this web site–that we have to broaden our discussion of space far beyond science, which is actually one of the poorest justifications for it. Jeff Foust reviews the Astronaut Farmer, and Taylor Dinerman rightfully mocks the recent call by some well meaning but naive former astronauts to make the UN responsible for asteroid protection. I was going to do one of these myself, because it just begs for ridicule, but I’ve been busy.

While the Dem takeover of Congress will have many bad effects, Jeff Foust points out that there’s at least one silver lining for space enthusiasts:

…there appears to be a chance to make a serious attempt at some form of export control reform. The change in control of Congress after the 2006 elections has put new people into leadership positions of key committees, including some representatives who may be more amenable to reform. However, getting that reform passed through Congress is no easy task, and is fraught with political peril for those who do support it. The odds of getting meaningful reform passed during this Congress may be higher now than they have been for years, but that doesn

Cathy Booth Thomas has a fairly comprehensive overview of the space tourism industry at Time Magazine. I didn’t see any mistakes in it, except I’m not sure what she means about Dreamchaser being Russian derived. I thought that it was based on the HL-20. That vehicle was inspired by a Russian design, but she probably should have mentioned the Langley heritage.

Alan Boyle has a fascinating exclusive interview with Bob Bigelow, who seems to be planning to homestead EML-1 privately. I’m glad that someone’s going to do it, since NASA seems determined to ignore it, despite its many potential advantages. He seems primarily interested in it as an assembly point for building a lunar base that can then be dropped to the surface in one piece, avoiding lunar surface assembly issues. But I suspect that once he starts doing it, there will probably be permanent infrastructure there as well.

[Update at 10:30 AM EST]

In the face of continuing progress in the private sector such as described above, Clark Lindsey once again questions NASA’s priorities.

The answer, of course, comes down to pork. Bigelow won’t provide/maintain jobs in the right congressional districts.

In response to a post about John Glenn’s vague boostering of the ISS, there’s an interesting discussion in comments over at Space Politics about its utility.

I agree with “anonymous” that orbital assembly techniques are crucial skills, and disagree with Donald Robertson that the ISS was a good or cost-effective (or even necessary) way to get them. Like Shuttle, to the degree we’ve learned things from ISS, it was much more how not to do things, and the cost of the education was far too high.

Matt Bowes writes not to give the environmentalists an inch on space tourism, or they will take a mile. I agree. We should consider the environment in our designs, but sensibly, with rational analyses, and not allow the class-warfare luddites to dictate the shape of the industry.

Is NASA starting to sprout a little fur?

NASA’s news release said a memorandum of understanding called for the agency’s Ames Research Center to work together with Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson, to “explore possible collaborations in several technical areas, including hybrid rocket motors and hypersonic vehicles capable of traveling five or more times the speed of sound, employing NASA Ames’ unique capabilities and world-class facilities.”

NASA said the agreement was negotiated through NASA

In an article at PopMech about Orion, Scott Horowitz sets up a classic strawman:

By relying on existing technology, the design would allow for more efficient construction, narrowing the gap between the shuttle’s retirement in 2010 and the next manned flight. But it also stirred a hot debate within the aerospace community. “NASA’s attitude seems to be that Apollo worked, so let’s just redo Apollo,” says Charles Lurio, a Boston space consultant. Burt Rutan, the mastermind behind the rocket SpaceShipOne, likened the new CEV to an archeological dig. “To get to Mars and the moons of Saturn, we need breakthroughs. But the way NASA’s doing it, we won’t be learning anything new.”

Scott Horowitz, NASA’s associate administrator for Exploration Systems, defends the agency’s approach. “Sure, we’d love to have antimatter warp drive,” he says. “But I suspect that would be kind of expensive. Unfortunately, we just don’t have the money for huge technological breakthroughs. We’ve got to do the best we can within our constraints of performance, cost and schedule.”

Emphasis mine. Note that neither Lurio or Rutan were calling for “antimatter warp drive.” Neither were they calling for unaffordable “huge technical breakthroughs,” as far as I’ve ever heard. They were simply asking for something that would be worth the many billions being invested in it. Instead, NASA sets up the false choice that it’s either Apollo or Star Trek, and continues, in its attitude, to keep us mired in a world of high cost and low productivity in space.

For some reason, Popular Mechanics has reposted the interview they did with me last fall. For those new readers who missed it, here it is, and there’s nothing changed since then that would cause revision to my remarks.

Clark Lindsey has posted Henry Vanderbilt’s latest announcement for Space Access, which is a month earlier this year than it’s traditionally been, occurring in March instead of April. As Henry notes, if you plan to attend, you’d better hurry and make your hotel reservation.

It’s one of the best conferences, if not the best, of the year to find out what’s happening with the “other space program” (the one for the rest of us). Don’t let the fact that I’ll be there, and on a panel, dissuade you from attending.

Also, the National Space Society has moved ISDC back to Memorial Day (a big mistake, I think–one of the reasons that they had such good attendance last year in LA was, in addition to the fact that it was in LA, because it wasn’t on a holiday weekend). Here’s the press announcement:

National Space Society to Host 26th Annual Conference in Dallas, Convening Pioneers from Government and Private Space Programs
2007 International Space Development Conference Set for Memorial Day Weekend.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21, 2007