Category Archives: Space

Better Ways

Jon Goff has a good overview of the alternatives to ESAS, with commentary. Read the comments, also, particularly regarding propellant delivery. I am getting more and more intrigued by Lockheed Martin’s approach, and starting to think they’re really serious.

Initial Thoughts On Space Implications

So, I was flying from Dallas to Denver this morning, reading the WSJ, and looking over the new committee assignments, and I noticed that Rep. James Oberstar (he who would have us overregulate the fledgling space passenger business, perhaps fatally) will be taking over the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. I wondered if he was planning to take another run at that, now that he’s in the majority, instead of minority.

Now that I have Internet access again, I see that Jeff Foust already indicates that he just might have such plans.

If it happens, the main effect, I think, will be to chase people overseas, perhaps to Australia. We’ll still get there, but it won’t happen in the US.

The other issues that aren’t mentioned in Jeff’s post are the fate of Centennial Challenges and COTS under a Democrat Congress. I can see them preserving VSE/ESAS because of the jobs in Houston et al, but it’s not obvious that prizes and commercial activities will continue to be supported by the Dems. They were by the Republicans due to White House pressure (at least in the case of COTS), but the White House won’t have as much influence (to put it mildly) over the new budgetary sheriff in town, barring veto threats.

NASA Breakthroughs

Here’s an amazing demonstration of the cluelessness and credulity of reporters, particularly when it comes to NASA and space:

With the cost of gas hovering between $2 and $3 a gallon and the oil supply declining, scientists at NASA have discovered a potential new energy source — helium-3.

When combined with water, the element creates energy.

Just add water? What a breakthrough! Guess we don’t have to figure out how to do that complicated fusion thing.

Grigsby said he also plans to discuss NASA’s other creations, including the ion motor. It’s an engine that accelerates so quickly in space, picking up speed as it moves, that it creates artificial gravity.

A high-acceleration ion drive? Another breakthrough!

And of course, we get the usual spinoff argument.

Grigsby said most Americans don’t understand the importance of NASA. It’s more than space travel, he said.

“The problems we solve in space have a direct spinoff on people,” he said.

Well, actually, maybe not that usual:

Even tennis shoes, with their rubber soles, are partly a NASA creation. Before the 1960s, shoes were all leather and, often, not comfortable.

Wow. Tang, teflon and tennis shoes! Who knew?

Guess those old Converses I wore before we got to the moon were a figment of my imagination. Or maybe I just forgot about the leather soles–it’s been so long, after all.

Jews In Space

Commercial space, that is. I got a call a couple weeks ago from the author of this piece for the Jewish Journal. He was looking for Jews involved in NewSpace (and he guessed I was from my last name, though I’m not). I gave him a couple other names (notably Goldin’s, which he misspelled, though he’s not exactly NewSpace). But I see that he found some others. For instance, I wasn’t previously aware that Paul Allen was Jewish.