Random Musings from the Warped Minds of Jonathan Goff, Ken Murphy, John Hare, and Kirk Sorensen
Posted in Space Development on Jul 31st, 2010
I saw a comment by Jim Davis over on NASASpaceflight.com that made me want to do a poll about real attitudes towards Mars colonization. Let me give some background thoughts, the questions, then some rules for comments. First off, Jim’s goal here was to ask people questions that really delve into how likely they actually [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jul 30th, 2010
guest blogger john hare One good thing about the current congress/senate/president funding mess is that we won’t have to listen to as many cranks start their rocket development plan with, “First we convince the president.”
Posted in Commercial Space, Space Development on Jul 24th, 2010
I saw on twitter that Alex MacDonald’s paper on comparing the private funding of astronomical observatories and space exploration is finally up. It’s a fascinating read. I met Alex at New Space conference last year, and he showed me some of his research. His hypothesis is that astronomical observatories were the “space exploration” of the [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jul 17th, 2010
guest blogger john hare There have been many comments over the years on many sites about cost plus being used when nobody has any idea of the costs of a project or how to bid it. This morning on Clark’s site spacetransportnews.com he linked to an article claiming that getting bids was so uncertain that contractors [...]
Posted in NASA, Snark, Space Policy, Space Transportation on Jul 15th, 2010
They misnamed the bill though. Should’ve been called “Found a Pork Program (un)Worthy of its Host Nation”. I find it amusing that so many of the opponents of Obama’s proposed space plan are so happy with this, when it doesn’t actually resolve most of the things they said were wrong with his policy. To whit: [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jul 12th, 2010
guest blogger john hare Many of us have complained from time to time about the lack of true progress from NASA even while agreeing that there are a lot of very smart motivated people in the agency. It would be useful if some way could be found to use the capabilities of those skilled people without [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jul 10th, 2010
guest blogger john hare There is a fairly constant murmur that commercial space will not go beyond LEO and more mumbling that there must be a specific destination with a specific timeline. The second mumbling assumes that there is some top down command structure that will make one thing happen regardless of obstacles or opportunities along the way. [...]
Posted in Administrivia, Excuses for Light Blogging on Jul 6th, 2010
I really apologize for the light blogging lately. I’ve been under a lot of stress, and unfortunately I’m expecting the light blogging to continue for at least the rest of the month, and probably longer. I’m heading up to Oregon today for a family reunion on Tiff’s side of the family. Her mom’s been in [...]