Currently browsing tag

nasa

Mudskipper: A Mars Colony Ship

To boldly go beyond Earth’s orbital neighborhood is the next level of courageous, crewed exploration. To make it to that step, we’ll need a spaceship purpose-built with the idea that that crew will be gone for protracted amounts of time and will likely set up camp somewhere else.

Read more...

Space Shuttle Discovery’s First and Last Landings

OV-103. The space shuttle Discovery. Twenty-seven years of service. Thirty-nine times it lifted off and thirty-nine times it landed safely. All told it spend a year in space and traveled over 238 million km (148 million miles). That sort of use leaves its mark after a while.

Read more...

Government, Spaceflight, Spinoffs, and People

To the outside observer, it seems like the U.S. Government treats the funding of NASA with the same care and understanding as they do the United States Postal Service. The outside observer would be wrong; it’s not handled nearly as well. And the USPS is going bankrupt…so that sort of gives you an idea of how bad the problem is.

Read more...

Those Sexy Rockets

I’m a bit of a life-long space nerd. (I know!) Obviously, over the years, different launch vehicles have caught my eye. Much like worthy media celebrities, these rocket stars are more than just a pretty face…but the pretty face helps.

Read more...

Let’s Speed-up Spacecraft Development Without Rushing

Following the failure and crash of a Russian Progress M-12M cargo vehicle, there has been a lot of alarmist rhetoric about the future of the ISS as well as American spaceflight capability. Let’s take a step back to look at the situation without a “sky is falling” mentality.

Read more...

Making Obama’s Space Policy Fashionable

Every time President Obama unveils more details on his vision of America’s space future, I get increasingly sad. In some ways he’s making his predecessor look like a visionary. I think it’s fair to say that Obama’s plan is so greatly in need of visionary correction that even Lasik might not be very effective.

Read more...

Space Vision: A Whole Lot of Nothing

There are a lot of rumors floating about what President Obama will opt to do with NASA and manned spaceflight. Much of this is based on the report Obama received from the Review of Human Spaceflight Plans Committee. While some of the rumors are doubtless based on administration “trial balloons”, I do think a paradigm shift is definitely in the offing.

Read more...