Selenian Boondocks

You know the saying about a stopped clock being right twice a day? Well, no sooner did I lay into Jeff Bell for his most recent uninformed rant, then he actually produced an article of substantially better quality. There were several minor issues I disagree with him on, but I agree rather strongly with his [...]

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One of my pet peeves with a lot of other space writers is people who get all snarky and condescending about a topic that they really don’t understand. [Note: Before anyone accuses me of hypocracy, I'll admit that I probably do this quite a bit myself.] The latest case in point is Jeff Bell’s most [...]

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Howdy all, Ken here. I hope everyone is still completely stuffed from a bountiful Thanksgiving. We had a gorgeous day here in north Texas, and I had a good time rough-housing with my nephews in their front yard. I also picked up the newest copy of Ad Astra from the National Space Society. Since I’m [...]

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I have a few SpaceX related things I wanted to post today. First off, I just read from one source that the Falcon I flight was getting delayed again. It appears that the flight being delayed till February is the second flight (the one launching from Vandenburg maybe?), not the first one. It isn’t readily [...]

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On a whim, I was just reading an article on MSN.com, and it got me thinking. The writer, Tamim Ansary, was discussing history’s top 9 most underrated inventions. He made the following rather interesting statement about the rotary printing press (emphasis mine): Johannes Gutenberg invented the flatbed printing press in 1450. His invention remained basically [...]

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In a reply to my last post, Mark claims that he “pretty much nuked this one over on my own blog.” Man, they sure don’t make nukes the way the used to…. Mark says: Jon ends this section with a very oft repeated line that people have used over the years when they doubt the [...]

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I specifically mentioned in Part I of this post that I’d be discussing the illegitimate options (ie illegal options) that China could take if it wanted to “take over the moon” or at least prevent others from visiting there. The basic point I think you’ll quickly see is that none of these simplistic and ameteurish [...]

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There’s been a lot of discussion recently, and plenty of silly fearmongering about a Reuter’s article claiming that China is going to send a man to the moon by 2017. I’m not going to spend too much time talking about the merits of the article. Well, other than to say that an translation from a [...]

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Our favorite cranky curmudgeon, Mark Whittington decided to do a little trolling the other day. I know I really shouldn’t allow myself to be baited so easily, but I’ve got a little time on my hands this morning, and I haven’t done a good fisking in at least a few weeks. Well, I actually do [...]

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There’s been a lot of coverage on various space blogs recently about SpaceX’s antitrust lawsuit versus Boeing and Lockheed Martin. I may take some time later to discuss some of my thoughts about the case itself, I just wanted to comment on a common complaint I’ve been hearing in the alt.space community about the lawsuit. [...]

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