Saturday, March 30, 2019
Newt Gingrich: Making the Trump-Pence Space Challenge a Reality
Boeing should be challenged to fully take over the Space Launch System project — which it has been paid billions to manage in a traditional cost-plus process. Boeing should be liberated from NASA’s traditional pattern of management, over-planning, and underperforming. If Boeing could liberate its designers and engineers to be mission-oriented rather than process-dominated, the SLS could leap forward, and its price would drop.
At the same time, companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin should be invited into the competition. The central goal would be getting Americans back to the Moon and keeping them there. Companies that meet the goals ahead of schedule should get a bonus. The first company to meet the project goals should get an even bigger bonus.
Furthermore, companies that come in under budget should be allowed to keep 20 percent of the savings. And there should be an opportunity for fully funded new entrants to come and compete.
Importantly, participants should be paid only for achievement – not for planning or process. One suggestion I have heard from industry was for companies to be paid a price per kilo of delivery on the surface of the Moon.
Friday, March 29, 2019
Why NASA announced and then canceled an all-woman spacewalk
When NASA announced that astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch would conduct a spacewalk on the International Space Station, the event was invested with a great deal of symbolism. The NASA astronaut corps did not include women, back when “manned spaceflight” was an accurate description and not, as it is now, evidence of archaic, obsolete rhetoric. Women have commanded space shuttle missions, have commanded the ISS, and have done pretty much everything that their male counterparts do currently while in space.
Thursday, March 28, 2019
The title story of The Last Moonwalker and Other Stories
was written in 2009 and is therefore somewhat dated, since it came out a year before President Obama trashed the Constellation program in his high-handed fashion. For a long time, even after President Trump revived the return to the moon goal, it looked like the main story line of the last surviving Apollo moon walker mentoring the next crew to go back to the moon would be alternate history. But now that Vice President Pence has thrown down the gauntlet and has challenged NASA to get moon boots on the lunar soil by 2024, it is entirely possible that at least one of the old Apollo guys will still be around to send them off. Also, thanks to Jim Bridenstine, another prediction from the novel, that the next moon walker will be a woman, will be fulfilled.
was written in 2009 and is therefore somewhat dated, since it came out a year before President Obama trashed the Constellation program in his high-handed fashion. For a long time, even after President Trump revived the return to the moon goal, it looked like the main story line of the last surviving Apollo moon walker mentoring the next crew to go back to the moon would be alternate history. But now that Vice President Pence has thrown down the gauntlet and has challenged NASA to get moon boots on the lunar soil by 2024, it is entirely possible that at least one of the old Apollo guys will still be around to send them off. Also, thanks to Jim Bridenstine, another prediction from the novel, that the next moon walker will be a woman, will be fulfilled.
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
PENCE CALLS FOR AMERICAN BOOTS ON THE MOON BY 2024
Vice President Mike Pence threw down the gauntlet at a meeting of the National Space Council. NASA will return astronauts to the moon in the next five years “by any means necessary.” The announcement represents a massive course correction from the slow, “sustainable” course the space agency has been on to something more like the race to the moon of the 1960s. Indeed, Pence noted that the United States and her allies are in a race with China, a country that seeks to use the moon to achieve world domination. The announcement is a culmination of a number of policy changes the Trump administration has executed.
Monday, March 25, 2019
Sunday, March 24, 2019
The US is losing the nuclear energy export race to China and Russia. Here's the Trump team's plan to turn the tide
Saturday, March 23, 2019
Friday, March 22, 2019
NASA engineer suggests settling Saturn's moon Titan
While most space visionaries are planning for settlements on the moon and eventually Mars, a NASA engineer named Janelle Wellons has an even more ambitious idea. According to Futurism, Wellons, a mission operation engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, suggested recently that humans should establish a settlement on Titan, the second largest moon in the solar system, orbiting Saturn.
Thursday, March 21, 2019
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Monday, March 18, 2019
Sunday, March 17, 2019
Saturday, March 16, 2019
Friday, March 15, 2019
Apollo 11: How millennials can grasp the greatest event ever — for now
Meanwhile, a new documentary, "Apollo 11," has recently been released on Imax and the regular big screen that may show some of the millennials why the moon landing is such a big deal. It certainly demonstrated that fact to those people who are old enough to think both Apollo and SpaceX are pretty cool.
CHINA AND RUSSIA ARE ALREADY DEVELOPING PLANS TO COMBAT THE SPACE FORCE
The first threat the Space Force must face is the United States Congress, which may or may not approve the new service branch. Presuming that the Space Force survives the legislative process, it will face several real threats to America’s space assets.
Beto O’Rourke is a deluded loser running on a ticket of lies, hypocrisy and the vote-destroying message that all Americans are about to die
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says ‘we should be excited about automation’
“We should be excited about automation, because what it could potentially mean is more time educating ourselves, more time creating art, more time investing in and investigating the sciences, more time focused on invention, more time going to space, more time enjoying the world that we live in,”
While it is good to know that @AOC approves of space travel, it should be pointed out that THE GREEN NEW DEAL WOULD END AMERICAN SPACE TRAVEL
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Monday, March 11, 2019
It looks like NASA is switching the Europa Clipper from the SLS to the Falcon Heavy. It is so nice to be listened to once in a while.
Sunday, March 10, 2019
Saturday, March 09, 2019
Friday, March 08, 2019
The flight of SpaceX's Dragon and the coming age of commercial spaceflight
When the SpaceX crewed Dragon — sans crew except for a test dummy named Ripley — lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center and then docked with the International Space Station, many hailed the mission as the start of a new age of commercial spaceflight. The pronouncements were a little premature. As of this writing, the Dragon still must undock from the ISS and then splashdown successfully, having returned to Earth. Then the SpaceX spacecraft must undergo a launch abort test. No earlier than July, the Dragon will fly again, this time with a crew of astronauts. Only after the successful completion of these tests will people ride to and from the ISS onboard Elon Musk’s modern, high-tech space capsule.
SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down in Atlantic to Cap Historic Test Flight
