Category Archives: Space
Future Space Settlers
…should emulate the Pilgrims.
China Seeking Space Partners
…and apparently Russia need not apply.
The Transition Continues
A reboost/upgrade of Hubble with a private mission.
We’ll be seeing a lot of innovation to replace the capabilities that were lost with the Shuttle, and probably more willingness to accept risk.
What I haven’t heard is how they propose to do the EVA from Dragon. They don’t have an airlock, so presumably they’d have to blow down the cabin, and then repressurize when they come back in. Did SpaceX cold plate the avionics so it doesn’t need cabin atmosphere for cooling?
What We’ve All Been Waiting For
Continuing Progress
On Starship Prices
The world has finally seen a launch system that can find out what the price-demand elasticity curve looks like. Elon wants to maximize flight rate and revenue, because he wants to drive costs down to make Mars more affordable.
Starship
[Afternoon update]
Starship has to work, or SpaceX is at risk of bankruptcy.
Bill Nelson 2.0
First he called cost-plus contracts a “plague” on the agency, and now he’s praising SpaceX (while pretending that he wasn’t one of the “poo pooers” himself, who told Lori to “get her boy Elon in line”). And I love this:
“When there was the beginning of the space cargo and crew [programs], the two serious bidders were SpaceX and Boeing, and everybody poo-pooed SpaceX and said, ‘Oh, Boeing is a legacy company,'” Nelson said. “Well, guess who is about to make its sixth flight after its first test flight with astronauts, and guess who’s still on the ground?”
That’s got to leave a mark.
The Rice Speech
Today is the sixtieth anniversary. I wrote this on the fortieth anniversary, and it holds up pretty well, I think. “Because it is hard” is a dumb reason to do something.