Rob Wilson / 7:55 am September 30th, 2005

The damage control for Griffin’s USA Today “Shuttle and Station were mistakes” interview has begun.

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Rob Wilson / 8:43 pm September 28th, 2005

And he’s not afraid to say so in the media:

Asked Tuesday whether the shuttle had been a mistake, Griffin said, “My opinion is that it was. … It was a design which was extremely aggressive and just barely possible.” Asked whether the space station had been a mistake, he said, “Had the decision been mine, we would not have built the space station we’re building in the orbit we’re building it in.”

It would be nice to believe that this is the thin end of a shuttle (and possibly station) retirement sales campaign. I doubt that it is, but it would be nice.

Griffin has made it clear that he intends to return the shuttle to flight - if only so that he can retire it a few years later in an “orderly fashion.” But he has also clearly stated that he will follow the plan set forth by the President. Should the President change that plan to include ending the shuttle program now, I believe Griffin would carry it out, regardless of his own personal misgivings.

It would cause a first-class ruckus amongst the jobs-in-districts politicians, but retiring the shuttle now must be starting to look pretty attractive to the OMB and the White House in the midst of the budget squeeze. It’s going to take them a lot of money over the next few years to fly the shuttle - and just to finish a space station that they don’t really want anyway.

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Rob Wilson / 1:49 pm September 28th, 2005

SpaceX have announced that the first Falcon I will now fly from Kwajalein atoll on October 31.

The hopes and best wishes of the space community will be riding along with that little rocket. I don’t expect it will get the kind of media attention that SpaceShipOne attracted, but in a lot of ways it is more important. If this launch succeeds, the folks at SpaceX will have designed, built and flown a completely clean-sheet rocket, from scratch, for under $100 million dollars.

Think for a moment about what that means. An alt.space launch vehicle company will have reached orbit for the first time. On a development budget that you could lose in a NASA rounding error. At a launch price, if they get even remotely near their targets, that wouldn’t even buy a decent paper study at BoLockMart. And with significant developmental work on the larger Falcon 5 and 9 vehicles thrown in for good measure.

Godspeed Falcon I.

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Ken Murphy / 4:47 pm September 23rd, 2005

Roncoli, Ralph
“Lunar Constants and Models Document”
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
09/23/2005
JPL D-32296
Publisher’s Web Site

Rob Wilson / 3:50 pm September 21st, 2005

I’m still mulling over my thoughts regarding the NASA ESAS architecture. In the meantime, here’s something interesting:

Could the Shuttle possibly be about to be put out of its misery?

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Rob Wilson / 1:56 pm September 16th, 2005

Space.com is reporting that the senate has passed the budget for NASA, giving the agency a $200 million dollar increase over last year, but about $60 million less than the request. All the major NASA undertakings, including shuttle, station, VSE, Hubble and aeronautics are funded. Now it just has to be matched up with the congress version.

The clear implication, though, is that next year NASA will have the funds it needs (or at least, most of the funds it asked for) to get the VSE under way.

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Rob Wilson / 1:46 pm September 16th, 2005

According to Flight International in this article, SpaceX plans to use Falcon 9 to go after ISS resupply. No surprises there.

If Elon makes (or even gets near) his launch price goal, and the Falcon proves even remotely reliable, that’s sure going to make it hard for NASA to justify giving those contracts to the BLockMart EELVs.

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Rob Wilson / 1:23 pm September 16th, 2005

Well, I’ve decided that I’ll blog the news articles that most interest me, and simultaneously post them to the forums, and use that instead of the normal blog comments for feedback.

So normal blogging is resumed, for space news, and the odd writing/SF piece or whatever interests me.

Cheers,
Rob.

Rob Wilson / 4:40 pm September 12th, 2005

Until a few days ago when I set up the forums, this blog was basically experimental. What that translates to is: I was using it to fiddle with the concept, rather than to blog as seriously as I might have. That further translates to: I was too busy/lazy/[insert reason here] to post as frequently as I might have.

That’s all changed now, since the Space Arena Board, where I am an avid reader but only very occasional poster, has become overwhelmed with spam, leading me to provide a moderated discussion board as an alternative.

Now this site is a little more in the public eye, and that compells me to do something useful with it.

I’m just not sure what, yet. Stay tuned.

Ken Murphy / 1:25 am September 1st, 2005

?
“Proximity Moon”
SNSTP
09/2005
ISBN: 7-536-94013-0
Publisher’s Website

Librarian’s Note: This came with my Moon Globe. I’d call it a youth version of “Beautiful Moon” given their similarities.