I’m reading the space policy paper by (former JSC Director George) Abbey and (former Clinton Science Advisor Neal) Lane.

It gets off on the wrong foot, in my opinion, right in the preface:

Space exploration on the scale envisioned in the president

Keith Cowing has now posted a transcript from the Q&A portion of the Griffin talk on Tuesday. It’s quite interesting, with good questions (and answers) from Keith himself, Jim Muncy, Klaus Heiss, Lori Garver, Debra Lepore (of Kistler), Mike Lounge from Boeing, and others.

Bernie Schriever has died.

Does Mark Whittington want to name names, or provide credible examples from serious people?

This may annoy some people who, on the one hand, preach libertarian cant and, on the other hand, demand government pay money up front, before the promised hardware is even built, not to mention delivered.

Most “libertarians” that I know have been demanding that the government only pay for progress, when achieved. Mark’s straw man notion has in fact been the standard government approach with the big contractors for years, with dismal results.

Rick Tumlinson eloquently states many of my concerns with NASA’s (and specifically Mike Griffin’s) approach to getting back to the moon:

…it is tempting to harken back to the

It must be true, it’s on the Internet.

No, I don’t know whether or not they’re serious either.

[Via Jeff Foust]

[Update a few minutes later]

Thomas James has further commentary.

It looks like the private solar sail mission may have gone in the drink.

This just points up how ridiculous our space transportation situation is. There is no other field in which we would accept the horrifically low reliability of vehicles, and the only reason for it is that we’ve historically simply come to accept it, and won’t demand better.

[Update on Wednesday morning]

Good news. Or at least better news. They seem to have found it. It’s not in the right orbit, but it’s in an orbit. Let’s hope it’s in an orbit that will last long enough to get it on its sunshiny way.

[Another update at 9:20 AM]

Emily Lakdawalla is blogging the progress.

[Update at 1:20 PM EDT]

Looks like the mission is history.

Last summer solstice, a year ago today, I was in Mojave, California, watching SpaceShipOne go into space for the first time. Tariq Malik describes all of the activity since then that bodes well for private space passenger travel.

OK, I decided to do a mild (because there’s actually much of it with which I agree) fisking of last week’s piece.

Continue reading My Take On Derb’s Rant →

OK, I decided to do a mild (because there’s actually much of it with which I agree) fisking of last week’s piece.

Continue reading My Take On Derb’s Rant →