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EETimes has an eye-opening article on space intelligence assets and what the future may hold for space militarizaton. Unfortunately, the author’s prognostications don’t touch on manned activities in space…just various satellites and satellite constellations. Some astrobiologists seem to have allowed panspermia to go to their heads. Sounds like someone’s Occam’s Razor needs sharpening. Mars Global Surveyor has returned a rare image of the Earth-Moon system, as seen from without. Mark Whittington over at Curmudgeons Corner administers a fisking to an essay by John Carter McKnight. I’d do the same, but I’m waaay too busy at the moment to spend the time to do it justice. I’ll just give JCM a few suggestions:
Space glass cracks earthly limits. Interesting article on experiments in glassmaking in space, and the potential applications for the resulting extremely-high-purity and exotic materials thus produced. Sounds like a good candidate for space-based manufacturing, given the market for such material (specifically, the near-zero-loss optical fibers). The big questions would be whether the market would really be big enough to offset the capitalization and transportation costs, and whether, by the time the orbiting fiber factory came on-line, someone might have found a one-gee alternative manufacturing process. If the materials are desirable enough, and can only be made in space, and the cost of space access can be brought down, space commercialization might have a winner here. The planets continue to align… I may be a little late to the game on this, but this project is very clever and well-done. Rick Tumlinson has the right idea. Personally, I’m not opposed to the OSP program. Mainly because I don’t see anything coming from it beyond studies and pitches and bench demos and such. At this point in the game, I don’t see that it can hurt for NASA to go through yet another cycle of fruitless conceptifying, and it may indeed help us into space in the long run. It can’t really hurt because past experience shows that nothing concrete will come of the effort. Private space initiatives and their financiers surely know by now that a proposed NASA vehicle is no threat to their potential markets, for the simple reason that the vehicle is unlikely to ever move beyond models and slides. And even if OSP is ultimately built, it will be so far behind schedule and so far over budget and so expensive to operate as to be uncompetetive with any private vehicles. OSP could actually help us get to space in the long run, by keeping NASA busy with its own affairs instead of meddling in the private launch initiatives under the guise of “helping” them. By the time the OSP project is abandoned (er, I mean, “restructured”), one or more of the private efforts will likely have demonstrated their own vehicles. Institutionally, though, calling on NASA to buy rather than build today is a bit premature. Even after numerous failures to build new manned spacecraft, I’m not sure the agency is quite ready to admit defeat and cede that turf entirely to private enterprise. Nor is private enterprise (in the form of Musk, Rutan, Bezos, et al) quite ready to take up the challenge. Yet. But the planets are clearly coming into alignment for the startups. You’d think a Congressman from Texas, all places, would have more of a clue: Congressman Says Space Shuttle Not Safe
Lessee…we flew what, ten Apollo crews? and lost three astronauts (and very nearly three more)? That’s three astronauts in ten flights, or an average of .100 astronaut per flight. Shuttle’s average is .124 astronauts lost per flight. Your point?
These are the only two alternatives? What about encouraging the private development of spacecraft, which NASA or any other government agency (or package delivery business, or paying tourist, or whatever) can then use as needed? And an unmanned Shuttle? What exactly would be the point of that? “My morning commute is too dangerous — I think I’ll automate my car so it can make the trip on its own without risking the lives of me and my carpool buddies.”
Well, he does have a point there. Too bad his imagination regarding NASA finding a safer way to fly into space appears to be limited to NASA building and operating a new brand of Shuttle.
Funny, that didn’t stop Congressman Barton from attending a rollout ceremony for a particularly dangerous military aircraft, responsible for more fatalities than the entire US space program to-date. A vehicle which many critics charge cannot be made safe to enough to fly in combat.
Groan.
This is so dumb, I’m beyond words. I’ve been doing a little digging lately into the issue of property rights and Mars. Specifically, what sorts of institutional arrangements should be in place prior to attempts to settle Mars (or the Moon, or asteroids, or empty space)? And more important, perhaps, what sorts of arrangements should not be made? What I’m looking for is a plan for establishing property rights, a few rules constituting a mechanism for generating title to property where no title currently exists. There is a parallel to this in the issue of sovereignty: when and how should sovereignty be established for, recognized in, or transferred to an entity which intends to act as a government? Granted, there are many opinions on this, but I have yet to find a succinct and simple plan for either subject which doesn’t also delve into all manner of other governance-related topics and/or utopian schemes for social engineering. I’m not at this point interested in proposals for a full-fledged planetary government or the like, rather the simplest organizational infrastructure needed to facilitate settlement. Discuss in the comments. |
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