Space exploration and development – more than numbers
Back in 2007, the NASA plan was to go back to the Moon by 2020. This is not to confuse anyone with current plans to return to the Moon by 2024, which might be 2028 or sometime later. Rather, this was the older plan as NASA launched its Shuttles on their last missions. Except there … Continue reading Planning, for space exploration, development, and commerce
Sometimes less is more. This also applies to data. Too long ago to say when without sounding ancient, I came upon a holy grail of launch price data. Many Bothans died to bring us this information. The more extensive, second spreadsheet, not the first one. We had known about the existence of the data, shown … Continue reading When less is more
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
There is an oddity to the International Space Station, its name – a station. On Earth this would be fine, a station, as in stationary, not moving. In space, though, “station” is a bit of a misnomer for a facility going once around the Earth every 90 minutes and traveling 15,500 miles per hour. Pictures, … Continue reading It’s not what it looks like – the cost of ISS per year
A launch failure is a visual event for all to see; a program’s failure to meet cost, flight rate, or other fuzzy goals - not so much. With an odd hardware failure, some unit gone bad, engineers might do a hybrid of Monday morning quarterbacking and applicable anecdotes. Of course, there is methodical troubleshooting, too. … Continue reading Commercial space and six questions for a good story – Pt. 3 of 3 (wonkish)
First, there was a forest, then just a smattering of trees, and finally, just this one tree. On a specific day, at a specific time, someone came to the last tree. Maybe they paused. Then they chopped it down, too. This is a version of the tragedy of the commons, a parable where incentives create … Continue reading Commercial space and six questions for a good story – Pt. 2 of 3 (wonkish)
In 2006 NASA went down a rather new path to get cargo to the International Space Station. No one could have imagined the end was so near for the dogma of space exploration as an expensive, exclusively government affair. Suddenly, getting cargo to the ISS meant inside baseball lingo about firm fixed price contracts and … Continue reading Commercial space and six questions for a good story – Pt. 1 of 3 (wonkish)
Oddly, one of the first books given to me when I arrived at NASA was for acronyms. Not what systems did or how they worked. Not flowrates. That would come later. First, acronyms. NASA had so many new things needing new words that it had turned grouping words together into an art. Somehow using only … Continue reading Sustainability and space exploration
Blue sky ahead. My job with NASA always meant looking ahead. Today I can’t help but look back. I am now retired, which I find an odd mix of calm, caffeinated, and a sense “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.” I arrived at Kennedy Space Center in 1988, a wonderful world of huge machines, … Continue reading Technology stagnation and NASA – problem and opportunity
Zapata Talks NASA 