Space exploration and development – more than numbers
There are flying machines that simply stick in the mind, a Concorde, a Shuttle, a Valkyrie XB-70, or a Boeing 747. One machine that hardly flew but does this trick is the 1920s German Dornier X airliner, an early and massive flying boat with 12 engines. Its wings had a crawl space so the crew … 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. 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 for a time, we were taking it all in with … 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, that what was evident … 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 wanted, 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, in high definition. Crews that are not NASA astronauts have now … 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 perhaps 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”. It was in this Byzantine world that whistle blower Ernie Fitzgerald said back 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 … 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 I … 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 was August 2009 and Sally Ride was 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 “Spaceflight”, full of vivid descriptions and beautiful artwork of so many places to go and how we will get there. The publisher being best known for Cheerios leaves me sure the … 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 not a charger on every corner. Now imagine that feeling in outer space, or back on the ground watching your spacecraft, not just for … Continue reading The rise, fall and rise again of refueling – in space
Iconic orange Space Shuttle external tanks and shiny SpaceX Starships are uncannily close in scale. I was fortunate to be on the team in the 1990’s that checked out and prepared the external tanks and then on the team that filled and launched them. I could not have guessed that 23 years into my career … Continue reading Of external tanks and Starships
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
The room filled with the usual suspects and small talk. This year it seemed an unwritten rule that before any presenter could talk about their good work there came this certain chart. It was the late 1990’s, exciting times when ever faster computers, internet connections and aerospace technology came together to spur dreams of things … Continue reading You can’t always get what you want, but…
Zapata Talks NASA 