Random Musings from the Warped Minds of Jonathan Goff, Ken Murphy, John Hare, and Kirk Sorensen
Posted in Commercial Space, NASA, Propellant Depots, Space Policy on Mar 31st, 2008
I’ll update this after work with some commentary (and sometime in the next week or two, I’ll see if I can upload a video of the session as well). But for now here are the four presentations that were given. I started out with an introduction to the concept of propellant depots, a short discussion [...]
Posted in Administrivia, Commercial Space on Mar 26th, 2008
We’re heading out tomorrow morning at 6:00 for Space Access. I’ll see if I can talk Henry V. into letting us videotape the propellant depot panel. If so, I’ll see if I can put it up here. If not, I’ll at least get copies of everyone’s presentation to put up on the blog. Anyhow, hope [...]
Posted in Homeschooling on Mar 22nd, 2008
I got an email a few days ago from one of my friends up in Santa Clara, Henry Cate (the guy who started the Carnival of Space). Not being actively involved in homeschooling yet, I apparently missed what happened recently, but the jist of it from what Henry was telling me is that the California [...]
I know I’m late to the game, but there’s been a lot of navel gazing of the past week about what people wrote back on the eve of the Iraq War, and typically “what they got wrong.” Because, quite frankly, a lot of the blogosphere, and the media elites were painfully wrong about a lot [...]
Posted in Commercial Space, Propellant Depots, Space Development on Mar 22nd, 2008
I’d like to solicit questions regarding the technical or business aspects of orbital propellant depots for the panel I’ll be chairing this coming Friday. I’ve got a great lineup of panelists (Rand Simberg of TransTerrestrial Musings, Dallas Bienhoff of Boeing, and Frank Zegler of ULA), so if you have any good questions about propellant depots, [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 18th, 2008
by guest blogger Ken Not trying to monopolize Jon’s blog or anything, but I’m sitting here staring at my ISU diploma, hand-signed by possibly the single most important name to date in the space field, a science fiction writer nonpareil, a scientist, and a visionary. Arthur C. Clarke has taken the next step in the [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 17th, 2008
by guest blogger Ken Jon’s warned me previously about my really long rambling posts (because he wants shorter, more frequent posts), so I’ll try to keep this one relatively brief, and focused on the topic of public utilities. I’ll admit that I do read a bit of science fiction, and more than just Moon stories. [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Mar 11th, 2008
by guest blogger Ken Okay, smackdown is probably a bit melodramatic, but it got your attention. A glass of cold water in the face is probably a closer description, but Griffin certainly put his foot down with the Mars science community. More on that in a bit. I had to cut my vacation short because [...]
Posted in NASA, Space Development, Space Polity on Mar 10th, 2008
A statement in this post by Clark Lindsey (and a further comment by Gary Hudson) on Hobbyspace reminded me why I’m somewhat uncomfortable with the term “sustainability” as it regards space exploration. I think the danger stems from how ambiguous the term can be. When you say “sustainable space development” to someone like Clark, Gary, [...]
Posted in Politics on Mar 10th, 2008
This country has immigration problems. Case in point. A good friend of our family here in town is an immigrant who has been living in the US since around when she was 6 or so (about a dozen years). She’s about to graduate from high school, and would like to save up for college. Unfortunately [...]