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A Couple of Comparisons

I’ve only had time this week to put together two comparison shots between my grandparents’ 1965 slides from KSC and my own from last week, but here they are. Unfortunately, I’m going to be too busy this coming week to do the rest any time soon – suffice to say there’s a couple more interesting […]

Virgin Galactic White Knight 2 Test Flight Video

Sweet.

The Wired article this comes from also contains more information about Scaled Composites’ recent test-flight teething pains with White Knight 2. Sounds like the test problems were […]

Liberty in Space?

Rand links to this interesting post at Cato Unbound on colonizing space and the “future of freedom”:

The critical question then becomes one of means, of how to escape not via politics but beyond it. Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode for escape must involve […]

They Know Our Secrets

Someone at SciFi has been doing their homework as regards spacecraft metal fatigue — last night’s episode, No Exit, features character Galen Tyrol performing, of all things, a dye penetrant inspection of Galactica’s major structures.

I have a hunch that that is the first time an authentic non-destructive inspection technique has figured in a science […]

Columbia Report Coming Out

Well this is a surprise – CNN is reporting that NASA will be releasing today the final report on the Columbia accident investigation today. This is not the what-caused-it report, but the what-happened-during analysis. Specifically, the report findings we saw concerned how the breakup progressed from initiation to completion and what can be learned to […]

How to Live On Mars

I’ll do a more thorough review of it when I get home again to reliable internet service, but I read Bob Zubrin’s new book How to Live On Mars yesterday.

It was funny, and a clever take on the subject, but there was a lot I found myself disagreeing with. In particular the sanction given […]

All I Want for Christmas…

…is a Multiple Kill Vehicle . Now that is cool.

(Imagine the hue and cry if a toy company actually marketed a product under a name like that…)

Try, Try Again

Elon Musk:

With a successful Falcon 1 mission, Musk plans to start lobbying for a follow-on contract to develop the Falcon 9-Dragon to transport space station crews.

“We haven’t pushed hard yet, even though I think it’s like blindingly obvious as the thing to do because we’re hoping to get to orbit and then on […]

Space Transport “I’ll Believe It When I See It” #45645988223

The Japan Space Elevator Association is planning to build (obviously enough) a space elevator:

Now the finest scientific minds of Japan are devoting themselves to cracking the greatest sci-fi vision of all: the space elevator. Man has so far conquered space by painfully and inefficiently blasting himself out of the atmosphere but the 21st century […]

Verne Launch

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