Space exploration and development – more than numbers
We knew the valley of death was up ahead, as we had been there many times before. Most wouldn’t make it. Well, to be truthful, we knew nearly none would make it. Wild ideas, new technology, and all those exciting, innovative projects that got anywhere from a bit of seed funding to serious dollars would … Continue reading The valley of death
Rocket launches, a possible boil water notice here in Orlando, and hospitals caring for patients with COVID are all connected. Now, it's about liquid oxygen, but finding more connections would not be surprising, like in any system. Oddly and often in projects, "it's a system" was an observation that arrived at the party early only … Continue reading It’s a system
“The gift shop is down that way, toward the lobby, past the spacesuit.” These are not the directions anyone can give a visitor lost among a run of offices and cubicles. You get away with this in the Kennedy Space Center Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout building, home today to the Orion spacecraft, home once … Continue reading The call, spacesuits, and everything else
There are flying machines that stick in the mind, a Concorde, a Shuttle, a Valkyrie XB-70, or a Boeing 747.One machine that hardly flew but did this trick was the 1920s German Dornier X airliner, an early massive flying boat with 12 engines. Its wings had a crawl space so the crew could reach the … Continue reading Contrasts
The saying “getting your wings clipped” took on a new meaning. It was 2002, and the plan for even a partially reusable replacement for the Space Shuttle now seemed a bridge too far. The debate had already devolved once, from fully reusable to partially reusable. It would devolve again, as all of a sudden, old-style … Continue reading Not in our stars
Time is supposed to be the way the universe keeps everything from happening all at once. It doesn’t always work this way. My wife and I were in London in 2016, and we made a point to see The Fighting Temeraire by Joseph Mallord William Turner. London has endless museums. So, we were taking it … Continue reading Parallels
The best answers led us to better questions. It is easy to embrace this notion as just part of the process, learning and all that, and all good. Admittedly, this sentiment may just be comforting fiction. I wasn’t lost. I was exploring. Why admit that we didn’t look far enough ahead and that what was … Continue reading Please phrase your answer in the form of a question
Being average is great until it’s not. For an engineer or scientist, a predictably average data point means the task is complete. We even count how many data points are a certain distance from what we want, our job being to make sure nearly none of the points in the herd stray too far. There … Continue reading Here there be dragons
Depending on the news, “new space” is commercial, innovative, well-funded by billionaires, and changing the world. The site of a Falcon 9 booster returning to land after being flown eight times tells a story of change, a revolution that, as predicted, is being televised, now in high definition. Crews that are not NASA astronauts have … Continue reading New space, a Rorschach test
We needed launches. Lots of launches. That much was clear, even if how to get there was not. It seemed it was always the same meeting, about a launcher, real or imagined, a Shuttle upgrade or some vehicle post-Shuttle. Perhaps the rocket was expendable, the big dumb booster, or maybe it was reusable. Perhaps it … Continue reading A picture worth a thousand words – flight rate, NASA and space exploration
Before “commercial space,” there was “cost-plus space.” In this Byzantine world, whistle-blower Ernie Fitzgerald said in the 1960s, “There are only two phases of a program. The first is ‘It’s too early to tell.’ The second, ‘It’s too late to stop.’” While today’s trending topics in space exploration are about going commercial, not cost-plus, Starships … Continue reading Revisiting commercial space and NASA
But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,In proving foresight may be vain:The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley,An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy! Robert Burns, On Turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785. This was not my first rodeo. Word had spread that … Continue reading The best laid schemes of NASA
"I think it’s fair to say that our review group drew the short straw, and I drew the shortest by having to actually do this presentation." Sally Ride, 2009 Dr. Sally Ride at the 2009 Review of Human Space Flight Plans Committee. It is August 2009, and Sally Ride is about to present charts about … Continue reading Drawing the short straw
On my shelves sits a childhood book “Planets and Spaceflight,” published in 1957 by General Mills. The front cover is “Planets,” and the rear is “Spaceflight,” full of vivid descriptions and beautiful artwork of the many places to go and how we will get there. The publisher is best known for Cheerios, so I’m sure … Continue reading What’s old is new again – more on refueling in space
Range anxiety was invented by NASA. Well, perhaps not (or Velcro), but space exploration gives new meaning to an obsessive awareness of how much further you can go when there is no charger on every corner. Now imagine that feeling if you are in outer space or back on the ground watching your spacecraft, not … Continue reading The rise, fall and rise again of refueling – in space
Zapata Talks NASA 